Apparatus and method for utilizing immediate gratification promotions

ABSTRACT

An apparatus, computer program product, and method are disclosed for generating immediate gratification promotions. An example apparatus includes communications circuitry configured to receive contextual data regarding a set of consumer devices, wherein the contextual data identifies locations of each consumer device of the set of consumer devices, receive resource management data regarding a set of merchant locations, transmit, to a consumer device of the set of consumer devices, a message indicating terms of an immediate gratification promotion redeemable at a merchant location of the set of merchant locations, wherein the immediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion for which purchase automatically initiates redemption, and receive, from the consumer device, a message requesting purchase of the immediate gratification promotion. The example apparatus further includes design circuitry configured to generate the terms of the immediate gratification promotion based on the received contextual data and the received resource management data.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.16/682,031, filed Nov. 13, 2019, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 15/174,164, filed Jun. 6, 2016 (now U.S. Pat. No.10,521,815), which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/171,576, filed Jun. 5, 2015, the contents of whichare each incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

TECHNOLOGICAL FIELD

Example embodiments of the present invention relate generally to nearreal-time device interactions and, more particularly, to a system andmethod by which contextual data can be utilized to improve the relevanceof man-machine interaction.

BACKGROUND

Applicant has discovered problems with existing mechanisms foridentifying the real-time desires of a user population. Through appliedeffort, ingenuity, and innovation, Applicant has solved many of theseidentified problems by developing a solution that is embodied by thepresent invention and described in detail below.

BRIEF SUMMARY

A system is provided that improves upon existing mechanisms foridentifying products and services to offer to consumers. In an exampleembodiment, a promotion and marketing service automatically interactswith consumer devices and merchant devices to identify contextuallyrelevant products and/or services. Using this information, particularlyrelevant promotions can thereafter be generated and provided toconsumers. Additionally, based on this contextual data, immediategratification promotions, which can be both purchased and redeemed by aconsumer with a single message, can be generated that are highlyrelevant and easy for consumers to use. Accordingly, embodimentsdescribed herein improve upon traditional mechanisms for promotingproducts and services to a user population.

In a first example embodiment, an apparatus is provided. The apparatusincludes communications circuitry configured to receive contextual dataregarding a set of consumer devices, wherein the contextual dataregarding the set of consumer devices at least identifies locations ofeach consumer device of the set of consumer devices, and receiveresource management data regarding a set of merchant locations. Thecommunications circuitry is further configured to transmit, to aconsumer device of the set of consumer devices, a message indicatingterms of an immediate gratification promotion redeemable at a merchantlocation of the set of merchant locations, wherein the immediategratification promotion comprises a promotion for which purchaseautomatically initiates redemption, and receive, from the consumerdevice, a message requesting purchase of the immediate gratificationpromotion. The apparatus further includes design circuitry configured togenerate the terms of the immediate gratification promotion based on thereceived contextual data and the received resource management data.

In some embodiments, the contextual data regarding the set of consumerdevices includes at least one of location, velocity, acceleration,angular velocity, direction-of-travel, mode of travel, temperature,humidity, brightness, gravity, orientation, proximity, recorded audio,time of day, day of the week, seasons, country identification,behavioral history, or one or more predefined consumer preferences.

In some embodiments, the resource management data regarding the set ofmerchant locations includes at least one of: product inventory at themerchant location; identification or quantification of fixed, perishableresources at the merchant location; or one or more discount thresholdsregarding one or more products or services offered for sale at themerchant location.

In some embodiments, the design circuitry is configured to identify theconsumer device and the merchant location prior to generating the termsof the immediate gratification promotion.

In some such embodiments, the design circuitry may be configured toidentify the consumer device and the merchant location by determining aphysical region associated with each particular merchant location of theset of merchant locations that indicates an area within which consumersare likely to purchase immediate gratification promotions redeemable atthat particular merchant location, establishing a geo-fence associatedwith each merchant location of the set of merchant locations, whereineach geo-fence comprises a virtual perimeter enclosing the determinedphysical region associated with a corresponding merchant location,identifying, from the received contextual data, a subset of consumerdevices that are located within the geo-fence associated with themerchant location, and selecting the consumer device from the subset ofconsumer devices that are located within the geo-fence. In one suchembodiment, determining the physical region around the merchant locationwithin which consumers are likely to purchase immediate gratificationpromotions relating to the merchant location comprises at least one of:identifying, using a historical database, purchase locations from whichconsumer devices have previously purchased immediate gratificationpromotions redeemable at the merchant location, and defining thephysical region around the merchant location as an area enclosing all ofthe identified purchase locations; defining the physical region aroundthe merchant location based on physical regions established forsimilarly situated merchant locations; or receiving an indication of thephysical region around the merchant location from a merchant deviceassociated with the merchant location. In another such embodiment,selecting the consumer device from the subset of consumer devices thatare located within the geo-fence includes extracting contextual dataregarding the consumer device from the received contextual data; anddetermining, based on the contextual data regarding the consumer device,that the consumer would likely want a product or service offered by themerchant location.

In other such embodiments, the design circuitry is configured toidentify the consumer device and the merchant location by determining aphysical region associated which each particular consumer device of theset of consumer devices that indicates an area within which thatparticular consumer device is likely to redeem immediate gratificationpromotions, identifying a subset of merchant locations that are withinthe determined physical region associated with the consumer device, andselecting the merchant location from the subset of merchant locationsbased on the context contextual data regarding the consumer device andthe resource management data regarding the subset of the identifiedmerchant locations.

In some embodiments, the design circuitry is configured to generate theterms of the immediate gratification promotion based on the receivedcontextual data and the received resource management data by extractingcontextual data regarding the consumer device from the receivedcontextual data, extracting resource management data regarding themerchant location from the received resource management data,determining, based on the context contextual data regarding the consumerdevice and the resource management data regarding the merchant location,a product or service to include in the immediate gratificationpromotion, retrieving a set of promotions offered by the merchantlocation, and selecting, based on the product or service to include inthe immediate gratification promotion and the set of promotions offeredby the merchant location, a cost to purchase the immediate gratificationpromotion, wherein the cost to purchase the immediate gratificationpromotion includes a value to be retained by a merchant associated withthe merchant location and a value to be retained by a promotion andmarketing service.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes processing circuitryconfigured to process payment for the immediate gratification promotionin response to receiving the message requesting purchase of theimmediate gratification promotion. In one such embodiment, theprocessing circuitry is configured to process payment for the immediategratification promotion by debiting an account associated with theconsumer device, and causing the communications circuitry to transmit amessage to the consumer device indicating that payment has been debitedfrom an account associated with the consumer.

In some embodiments, the communications circuitry is further configuredto receive a message indicating that a product or service identified inthe immediate gratification promotion is ready for redemption, andtransmit the message indicating that the product or service is ready forredemption to the consumer device.

In another example embodiment, a method is provided. The method includesreceiving contextual data regarding a set of consumer devices, whereinthe contextual data regarding the set of consumer devices at leastidentifies locations of each consumer device of the set of consumerdevices, receiving resource management data regarding a set of merchantlocations, transmitting, by communications circuitry and to a consumerdevice of the set of consumer devices, a message indicating terms of animmediate gratification promotion redeemable at a merchant location ofthe set of merchant locations, wherein the immediate gratificationpromotion comprises a promotion for which purchase automaticallyinitiates redemption, receiving, from the consumer device, a messagerequesting purchase of the immediate gratification promotion, andgenerating, by design circuitry, the terms of the immediategratification promotion based on the received contextual data and thereceived resource management data.

In some embodiments of the method, the contextual data regarding the setof consumer devices includes at least one of location, velocity,acceleration, angular velocity, direction-of-travel, mode of travel,temperature, humidity, brightness, gravity, orientation, proximity,recorded audio, time of day, day of the week, seasons, countryidentification, behavioral history, or one or more predefined consumerpreferences.

In some embodiments of the method, the resource management dataregarding the set of merchant locations includes at least one of:product inventory at the merchant location; identification orquantification of fixed, perishable resources at the merchant location;or one or more discount thresholds regarding one or more products orservices offered for sale at the merchant location.

In some embodiments, the method further includes identifying theconsumer device and the merchant location prior to generating the termsof the immediate gratification promotion.

In some such embodiments, identifying the consumer device and themerchant location includes determining a physical region associated witheach particular merchant location of the set of merchant locations thatindicates an area within which consumers are likely to purchaseimmediate gratification promotions redeemable at that particularmerchant location, establishing a geo-fence associated with eachmerchant location of the set of merchant locations, wherein eachgeo-fence comprises a virtual perimeter enclosing the determinedphysical region associated with a corresponding merchant location,identifying, from the received contextual data, a subset of consumerdevices that are located within the geo-fence associated with themerchant location, and selecting the consumer device from the subset ofconsumer devices that are located within the geo-fence. In one suchembodiment, determining the physical region around the merchant locationwithin which consumers are likely to purchase immediate gratificationpromotions relating to the merchant location comprises at least one of:identifying, using a historical database, purchase locations from whichconsumer devices have previously purchased immediate gratificationpromotions redeemable at the merchant location, and defining thephysical region around the merchant location as an area enclosing all ofthe identified purchase locations; defining the physical region aroundthe merchant location based on physical regions established forsimilarly situated merchant locations; or receiving an indication of thephysical region around the merchant location from a merchant deviceassociated with the merchant location. In another such embodiment,selecting the consumer device from the subset of consumer devices thatare located within the geo-fence includes extracting contextual dataregarding the consumer device from the received contextual data; anddetermining, based on the contextual data regarding the consumer device,that the consumer would likely want a product or service offered by themerchant location.

In other such embodiments, identifying the consumer device and themerchant location includes determining a physical region associatedwhich each particular consumer device of the set of consumer devicesthat indicates an area within which that particular consumer device islikely to redeem immediate gratification promotions, identifying asubset of merchant locations that are within the determined physicalregion associated with the consumer device, and selecting the merchantlocation from the subset of merchant locations based on the contextcontextual data regarding the consumer device and the resourcemanagement data regarding the subset of the identified merchantlocations.

In some embodiments, generating the terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion based on the received contextual data and the receivedresource management data includes extracting contextual data regardingthe consumer device from the received contextual data, extractingresource management data regarding the merchant location from thereceived resource management data, determining, based on the contextcontextual data regarding the consumer device and the resourcemanagement data regarding the merchant location, a product or service toinclude in the immediate gratification promotion, retrieving a set ofpromotions offered by the merchant location, and selecting, based on theproduct or service to include in the immediate gratification promotionand the set of promotions offered by the merchant location, a cost topurchase the immediate gratification promotion, wherein the cost topurchase the immediate gratification promotion includes a value to beretained by a merchant associated with the merchant location and a valueto be retained by a promotion and marketing service.

In some embodiments, the method includes processing payment for theimmediate gratification promotion in response to receiving the messagerequesting purchase of the immediate gratification promotion. In onesuch embodiment, processing payment for the immediate gratificationpromotion includes debiting an account associated with the consumerdevice, and causing transmission of a message to the consumer deviceindicating that payment has been debited from an account associated withthe consumer.

In some embodiments, the method further includes receiving a messageindicating that a product or service identified in the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption, and transmit themessage indicating that the product or service is ready for redemptionto the consumer device.

In another example embodiment, an apparatus is provided. The apparatusincludes means for receiving contextual data regarding a set of consumerdevices, wherein the contextual data regarding the set of consumerdevices at least identifies locations of each consumer device of the setof consumer devices, receiving resource management data regarding a setof merchant locations, means for transmitting, by communicationscircuitry and to a consumer device of the set of consumer devices, amessage indicating terms of an immediate gratification promotionredeemable at a merchant location of the set of merchant locations,wherein the immediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion forwhich purchase automatically initiates redemption, means for receiving,from the consumer device, a message requesting purchase of the immediategratification promotion, and means for generating, by design circuitry,the terms of the immediate gratification promotion based on the receivedcontextual data and the received resource management data.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the contextual data regarding theset of consumer devices includes at least one of location, velocity,acceleration, angular velocity, direction-of-travel, mode of travel,temperature, humidity, brightness, gravity, orientation, proximity,recorded audio, time of day, day of the week, seasons, countryidentification, behavioral history, or one or more predefined consumerpreferences.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the resource management dataregarding the set of merchant locations includes at least one of:product inventory at the merchant location; identification orquantification of fixed, perishable resources at the merchant location;or one or more discount thresholds regarding one or more products orservices offered for sale at the merchant location.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means foridentifying the consumer device and the merchant location prior togenerating the terms of the immediate gratification promotion.

In some such embodiments, the means for identifying the consumer deviceand the merchant location includes means for determining a physicalregion associated with each particular merchant location of the set ofmerchant locations that indicates an area within which consumers arelikely to purchase immediate gratification promotions redeemable at thatparticular merchant location, means for establishing a geo-fenceassociated with each merchant location of the set of merchant locations,wherein each geo-fence comprises a virtual perimeter enclosing thedetermined physical region associated with a corresponding merchantlocation, means for identifying, from the received contextual data, asubset of consumer devices that are located within the geo-fenceassociated with the merchant location, and means for selecting theconsumer device from the subset of consumer devices that are locatedwithin the geo-fence. In one such embodiment, the means for determiningthe physical region around the merchant location within which consumersare likely to purchase immediate gratification promotions relating tothe merchant location comprises at least one of: means for identifying,using a historical database, purchase locations from which consumerdevices have previously purchased immediate gratification promotionsredeemable at the merchant location, and means for defining the physicalregion around the merchant location as an area enclosing all of theidentified purchase locations; means for defining the physical regionaround the merchant location based on physical regions established forsimilarly situated merchant locations; or means for receiving anindication of the physical region around the merchant location from amerchant device associated with the merchant location. In another suchembodiment, the means for selecting the consumer device from the subsetof consumer devices that are located within the geo-fence includes meansfor extracting contextual data regarding the consumer device from thereceived contextual data; and means for determining, based on thecontextual data regarding the consumer device, that the consumer wouldlikely want a product or service offered by the merchant location.

In other such embodiments, the means for identifying the consumer deviceand the merchant location includes means for determining a physicalregion associated which each particular consumer device of the set ofconsumer devices that indicates an area within which that particularconsumer device is likely to redeem immediate gratification promotions,means for identifying a subset of merchant locations that are within thedetermined physical region associated with the consumer device, andmeans for selecting the merchant location from the subset of merchantlocations based on the context contextual data regarding the consumerdevice and the resource management data regarding the subset of theidentified merchant locations.

In some embodiments, the means for generating the terms of the immediategratification promotion based on the received contextual data and thereceived resource management data includes means for extractingcontextual data regarding the consumer device from the receivedcontextual data, means for extracting resource management data regardingthe merchant location from the received resource management data, meansfor determining, based on the context contextual data regarding theconsumer device and the resource management data regarding the merchantlocation, a product or service to include in the immediate gratificationpromotion, means for retrieving a set of promotions offered by themerchant location, and means for selecting, based on the product orservice to include in the immediate gratification promotion and the setof promotions offered by the merchant location, a cost to purchase theimmediate gratification promotion, wherein the cost to purchase theimmediate gratification promotion includes a value to be retained by amerchant associated with the merchant location and a value to beretained by a promotion and marketing service.

In some embodiments, the apparatus includes means for processing paymentfor the immediate gratification promotion in response to receiving themessage requesting purchase of the immediate gratification promotion. Inone such embodiment, the means for processing payment for the immediategratification promotion includes means for debiting an accountassociated with the consumer device, and means for causing transmissionof a message to the consumer device indicating that payment has beendebited from an account associated with the consumer.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means for receivinga message indicating that a product or service identified in theimmediate gratification promotion is ready for redemption, and means fortransmitting the message indicating that the product or service is readyfor redemption to the consumer device.

In another example embodiment, an apparatus is provided. The apparatusincludes context collection circuitry configured to collect contextualdata regarding the consumer device, wherein the contextual data includesa location of the consumer device retrieved from location servicescircuitry included in the apparatus. The apparatus further includescommunications circuitry configured to transmit the collected contextualdata regarding the consumer device to a promotion and marketing service,in response to transmitting the collected contextual data regarding theconsumer device to the promotion and marketing service, receive amessage indicating terms of an immediate gratification promotion offeredby a merchant, wherein the immediate gratification promotion comprises apromotion for which purchase automatically initiates redemption, and inresponse to receiving a request to purchase the immediate gratificationpromotion, transmit a message to the promotion and marketing service topurchase the immediate gratification promotion. The apparatus furtherincludes input/output circuitry configured to output a messageidentifying the terms of the immediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, the context collection circuitry is configured tocollect the contextual data regarding the consumer device by at leastone of retrieving the contextual data regarding the consumer device fromone or more sensors included in the apparatus, one or more databasesincluded in the apparatus, via the communications circuitry, or via theinput/output circuitry or deriving, using processing circuitry, thecontextual data regarding the consumer device from other contextual datastored in one or more memory.

In some embodiments, the contextual data regarding the consumer devicecomprises at least one of location, velocity, acceleration, angularvelocity, direction-of-travel, mode of travel, temperature, humidity,brightness, gravity, orientation, proximity, recorded audio, time ofday, day of the week, seasons, country identification, behavioralhistory, or one or more predefined consumer preferences. In someembodiments, the input/output circuitry is further configured to receivea set of consumer privacy restrictions, and the context collectioncircuitry is configured to collect contextual data in accordance withthe received consumer privacy restrictions.

In some embodiments, immediate gratification promotion is generatedbased on the collected contextual data regarding the consumer device andresource management data regarding the merchant.

In some embodiments, the input/output circuitry is configured to outputthe message identifying the terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion via a notification tray alert, a notification center message,an in-app message, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) text message, anon-MMS text message, or an email.

In some embodiments, the input/output circuitry is further configured toreceive the request to purchase the immediate gratification promotionfrom a consumer in response to outputting the message identifying theterms of the immediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes negotiationcircuitry configured to, in an instance in which the contextual dataincludes a predefined consumer preference instructing the apparatus toautomatically purchase relevant promotions: generate the request topurchase the immediate gratification promotion, and transmit the requestto purchase the immediate gratification promotion to the communicationscircuitry. In some such embodiments, 28, the negotiation circuitry isfurther configured to determine that the terms of the immediategratification promotion satisfy triggering criteria included in thepredefined consumer preferences, and generate the indication to purchasethe immediate gratification promotion in response to determining thatthe terms of the immediate gratification promotion satisfy thetriggering criteria.

In some embodiments, the communications circuitry is further configuredto receive an indication that a product or service identified in theimmediate gratification promotion is ready for redemption, and theinput/output circuitry is configured to output a message indicating thatthe product or service is ready for redemption via a notification trayalert, a notification center message, an in-app message, a multimediamessaging service (MMS) text message, a non-MMS text message, or anemail.

In another example embodiment, a method is provided. The method includescollecting contextual data regarding the consumer device, wherein thecollected contextual data includes a location of the consumer deviceretrieved from location services circuitry included in the consumerdevice, and transmitting, by communications circuitry, the collectedcontextual data regarding the consumer device to a promotion andmarketing service. The method further includes, in response totransmitting the collected contextual data regarding the consumer deviceto the promotion and marketing service, receiving a message indicatingterms of an immediate gratification promotion offered by a merchant,wherein the immediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion forwhich purchase automatically initiates redemption, outputting, byinput/output circuitry, a message identifying the terms of the immediategratification promotion, and in response to receiving a request topurchase the immediate gratification promotion, transmit a message tothe promotion and marketing service to purchase the immediategratification promotion.

In some embodiments, collecting the contextual data regarding theconsumer device includes at least one of retrieving the contextual dataregarding the consumer device from one or more sensors included in theapparatus, one or more databases included in the apparatus, via thecommunications circuitry, or via the input/output circuitry, orderiving, using processing circuitry, the contextual data regarding theconsumer device from other contextual data stored in one or more memory.

In some embodiments, the contextual data regarding the consumer deviceincludes at least one of location, velocity, acceleration, angularvelocity, direction-of-travel, mode of travel, temperature, humidity,brightness, gravity, orientation, proximity, recorded audio, time ofday, day of the week, seasons, country identification, behavioralhistory, or one or more predefined consumer preferences.

In some embodiments, the method further includes receiving a set ofconsumer privacy restrictions, wherein collecting the contextual datacomprises collecting the contextual data in accordance with the receivedconsumer privacy restrictions.

In some embodiments, the immediate gratification promotion is generatedbased on the collected contextual data regarding the consumer device andresource management data regarding the merchant.

In some embodiments, the method further includes outputting the messageidentifying the terms of the immediate gratification promotion comprisesoutputting the message identifying the terms of the immediategratification promotion via a notification tray alert, a notificationcenter message, an in-app message, a multimedia messaging service (MMS)text message, a non-MMS text message, or an email.

In some embodiments, the method further includes receiving the requestto purchase the immediate gratification promotion from a consumer inresponse to outputting the message identifying the terms of theimmediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, the method further includes, in an instance inwhich the contextual data includes a predefined consumer preferenceinstructing the apparatus to automatically purchase relevant promotionsgenerating, by negotiation circuitry, the request to purchase theimmediate gratification promotion, and transmitting the request topurchase the immediate gratification promotion to the communicationscircuitry. In some such embodiments, the method further includesdetermining, by the negotiation circuitry, that the terms of theimmediate gratification promotion satisfy triggering criteria includedin the predefined consumer preferences, wherein generating theindication to purchase the immediate gratification promotion occurs inresponse to determining that the terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion satisfy the triggering criteria.

In some embodiments, the method further includes receiving an indicationthat a product or service identified in the immediate gratificationpromotion is ready for redemption, and outputting, by the input/outputcircuitry, a message indicating that the product or service is ready forredemption via a notification tray alert, a notification center message,an in-app message, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) text message, anon-MMS text message, or an email.

In another example embodiment, an apparatus is provided. The apparatusincludes means for collecting contextual data regarding the consumerdevice, wherein the collected contextual data includes a location of theconsumer device retrieved from location services circuitry included inthe consumer device, and means for transmitting, by communicationscircuitry, the collected contextual data regarding the consumer deviceto a promotion and marketing service. The apparatus further includes,means for, in response to transmitting the collected contextual dataregarding the consumer device to the promotion and marketing service,receiving a message indicating terms of an immediate gratificationpromotion offered by a merchant, wherein the immediate gratificationpromotion comprises a promotion for which purchase automaticallyinitiates redemption, means for outputting a message identifying theterms of the immediate gratification promotion, and means for, inresponse to receiving a request to purchase the immediate gratificationpromotion, transmitting a message to the promotion and marketing serviceto purchase the immediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, the means for collecting the contextual dataregarding the consumer device includes at least one of means forretrieving the contextual data regarding the consumer device from one ormore sensors included in the apparatus, one or more databases includedin the apparatus, from a separate device or from a user, or means forderiving the contextual data regarding the consumer device from othercontextual data stored in one or more memory.

In some embodiments, the contextual data regarding the consumer deviceincludes at least one of location, velocity, acceleration, angularvelocity, direction-of-travel, mode of travel, temperature, humidity,brightness, gravity, orientation, proximity, recorded audio, time ofday, day of the week, seasons, country identification, behavioralhistory, or one or more predefined consumer preferences.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means for receivinga set of consumer privacy restrictions, wherein collecting thecontextual data comprises collecting the contextual data in accordancewith the received consumer privacy restrictions.

In some embodiments, the immediate gratification promotion is generatedbased on the collected contextual data regarding the consumer device andresource management data regarding the merchant.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means for outputtingthe message identifying the terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion comprises means for outputting the message via a notificationtray alert, a notification center message, an in-app message, amultimedia messaging service (MMS) text message, a non-MMS text message,or an email.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means for receivingthe request to purchase the immediate gratification promotion from aconsumer in response to outputting the message identifying the terms ofthe immediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means for, in aninstance in which the contextual data includes a predefined consumerpreference instructing the apparatus to automatically purchase relevantpromotions, generating the request to purchase the immediategratification promotion, and means for transmitting the request topurchase the immediate gratification promotion. In some suchembodiments, the apparatus further includes means for determining thatthe terms of the immediate gratification promotion satisfy triggeringcriteria included in the predefined consumer preferences, wherein themeans for generating the indication to purchase the immediategratification promotion is further configured to generate the indicationin response to determining that the terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion satisfy the triggering criteria.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means for receivingan indication that a product or service identified in the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption, and means foroutputting a message indicating that the product or service is ready forredemption via a notification tray alert, a notification center message,an in-app message, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) text message, anon-MMS text message, or an email.

In yet another example embodiment, an apparatus is provided. Theapparatus includes resource management circuitry configured to collectresource management data regarding a merchant location associated withthe merchant device. The apparatus further includes communicationscircuitry configured to transmit the collected resource management dataregarding the merchant location to a promotion and marketing service,and receive a message from the promotion and marketing serviceindicating terms of an immediate gratification promotion purchased by aconsumer for redemption at the merchant location, wherein the immediategratification promotion comprises a promotion for which purchaseautomatically initiates redemption. The apparatus further includesinput/output circuitry configured to output a message identifying theterms of the immediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, the resource management circuitry is configured tocollect the resource management data regarding the consumer device by atleast one of: retrieving the resource management data regarding themerchant location from one or more memories included in the apparatus orlocated externally to the apparatus; or receiving the resourcemanagement data via the input/output circuitry.

In some embodiments, the resource management data regarding the merchantlocation includes at least one of: product inventory at the merchantlocation; identification or quantification of fixed, perishableresources at the merchant location; or one or more discount thresholdsregarding one or more products or services offered for sale at themerchant location. In some such embodiments, the apparatus is furtherconfigured to receive the one or more discount thresholds from amerchant representative via the input/output circuitry or from anotherdevice via the communications circuitry.

In some embodiments, the immediate gratification promotion is generatedbased on collected contextual data regarding the consumer device and thecollected resource management data regarding the merchant location.

In some embodiments, the input/output circuitry is configured to outputthe message identifying the terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion via a notification tray alert, a notification center message,an in-app message, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) text message, anon-MMS text message, or an email.

In some embodiments, the input/output circuitry is configured to receivean indication that a product or service purchased via the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption. In some suchembodiments, the communications circuitry is further configured to, inresponse to receiving the indication that the product or servicepurchased via the immediate gratification promotion is ready forredemption, transmit a message indicating that the purchased product orservice is ready for redemption.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes processing circuitryconfigured to process payment for the promotion in response to receivingthe message requesting purchase of the promotion. In some suchembodiments, the processing circuitry is configured to process paymentfor the promotion by debiting an account associated with the consumerdevice and causing the communications circuitry to transmit a message tothe consumer device indicating that payment has been debited from anaccount associated with the consumer.

In another example embodiment, a method is provided. The method includescollecting resource management data regarding a merchant locationassociated with the merchant device, transmitting, by communicationscircuitry, the collected resource management data regarding the merchantlocation to a promotion and marketing service, receiving a message fromthe promotion and marketing service indicating terms of an immediategratification promotion purchased by a consumer for redemption at themerchant location, wherein the immediate gratification promotioncomprises a promotion for which purchase automatically initiatesredemption, and outputting, by input/output circuitry, a messageidentifying the terms of the immediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, collecting the resource management data regardingthe consumer device includes at least one of: retrieving the resourcemanagement data regarding the merchant location from one or morememories included in the apparatus or located externally to theapparatus; or receiving the resource management data via theinput/output circuitry.

In some embodiments, the resource management data regarding the merchantlocation includes at least one of: product inventory at the merchantlocation; identification or quantification of fixed, perishableresources at the merchant location; or one or more discount thresholdsregarding one or more products or services offered for sale at themerchant location. In some such embodiments, the method includesreceiving the one or more discount thresholds from a merchantrepresentative via the input/output circuitry or from another device viathe communications circuitry.

In some embodiments, the immediate gratification promotion is generatedbased on collected contextual data regarding the consumer device and thecollected resource management data regarding the merchant location.

In some embodiments, the method includes outputting, by the input/outputcircuitry, the message identifying the terms of the immediategratification promotion via a notification tray alert, a notificationcenter message, an in-app message, a multimedia messaging service (MMS)text message, a non-MMS text message, or an email.

In some embodiments, the method includes receiving, by the input/outputcircuitry, an indication that a product or service purchased via theimmediate gratification promotion is ready for redemption. In some suchembodiments, the method includes, in response to receiving theindication that the product or service purchased via the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption, transmitting a messageindicating that the purchased product or service is ready forredemption.

In some embodiments, the method further includes processing payment forthe promotion in response to receiving the message requesting purchaseof the promotion. In some such embodiments, the method includesprocessing the payment by debiting an account associated with theconsumer device and causing transmission of a message to the consumerdevice indicating that payment has been debited from an accountassociated with the consumer.

In another example embodiment, an apparatus is provided. The apparatusincludes means for collecting resource management data regarding amerchant location associated with the merchant device, means fortransmitting the collected resource management data regarding themerchant location to a promotion and marketing service, means forreceiving a message from the promotion and marketing service indicatingterms of an immediate gratification promotion purchased by a consumerfor redemption at the merchant location, wherein the immediategratification promotion comprises a promotion for which purchaseautomatically initiates redemption, and means for outputting a messageidentifying the terms of the immediate gratification promotion.

In some embodiments, the means for collecting the resource managementdata regarding the consumer device includes at least one of: means forretrieving the resource management data regarding the merchant locationfrom one or more memories included in the apparatus or locatedexternally to the apparatus; or means for receiving the resourcemanagement data via the input/output circuitry.

In some embodiments, the resource management data regarding the merchantlocation includes at least one of: product inventory at the merchantlocation; identification or quantification of fixed, perishableresources at the merchant location; or one or more discount thresholdsregarding one or more products or services offered for sale at themerchant location. In some such embodiments, the apparatus includesmeans for receiving the one or more discount thresholds from a merchantrepresentative.

In some embodiments, the immediate gratification promotion is generatedbased on collected contextual data regarding the consumer device and thecollected resource management data regarding the merchant location.

In some embodiments, the apparatus includes means for outputting themessage identifying the terms of the immediate gratification promotionvia a notification tray alert, a notification center message, an in-appmessage, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) text message, a non-MMStext message, or an email.

In some embodiments, the apparatus includes means for receiving anindication that a product or service purchased via the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption. In some suchembodiments, the apparatus includes, means for, in response to receivingthe indication that the product or service purchased via the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption, transmitting a messageindicating that the purchased product or service is ready forredemption.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further includes means for processingpayment for the promotion in response to receiving the messagerequesting purchase of the promotion. In some such embodiments, themeans for processing the payment includes means for debiting an accountassociated with the consumer device and means for causing transmissionof a message to the consumer device indicating that payment has beendebited from an account associated with the consumer.

The above summary is provided merely for purposes of summarizing someexample embodiments to provide a basic understanding of some aspects ofthe invention. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that theabove-described embodiments are merely examples and should not beconstrued to narrow the scope or spirit of the invention in any way. Itwill be appreciated that the scope of the invention encompasses manypotential embodiments in addition to those here summarized, some ofwhich will be further described below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Having thus described certain example embodiments of the presentdisclosure in general terms, reference will now be made to theaccompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, andwherein:

FIG. 1 shows an example system diagram, in accordance with an exampleembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2A illustrates a user interface for configuring privacy settingsassociated with a consumer device, in accordance with some exampleembodiments;

FIG. 2B illustrates a user interface for configuring promotionthresholds associated with a merchant location, in accordance with someexample embodiments;

FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic block diagram of circuitry embodying aconsumer device, in accordance with some example embodiments;

FIG. 4 illustrates a schematic block diagram of circuitry embodying amerchant device, in accordance with some example embodiments;

FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic block diagram of circuitry embodying aserver device, in accordance with some example embodiments;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example data flow diagram illustratinginteractions between a central server, one or more consumer devices, andone or more merchant devices, in accordance with some exampleembodiments;

FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart describing example operations performedby a consumer device, in accordance with some example embodiments;

FIG. 8 illustrates a flowchart describing example operations performedby a merchant device, in accordance with some example embodiments;

FIGS. 9, 10, and 11 illustrate flowcharts describing example operationsperformed by a promotion and marketing service, in accordance with someexample embodiments; and

FIGS. 12A, 12B, and 12C illustrate screen captures of a scenarioimplementing an example embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Overview

Businesses of all types continue to search for ways to increase revenueand profit. For promotion and marketing services, the goal is toidentify new ways to market products and services to consumers whilestill adding value for merchants. Utilizing mobile network connectivity,the inventors have developed example systems that provide relevantproduct offerings that were impossible to implement before the emergentubiquity of mobile devices.

To this end, one goal of a promotion and marketing service is to developpromotions that are more effective for merchants by increasing successrate, overspend, and/or up-sell potential. In this regard, analyzing andcapturing relevant contextual data from consumers provides thefoundational data necessary to achieve this goal. Collection ofcontextual data also provides new levels of fulfillment foryield-management tools (e.g., it is possible to fill an empty table in arestaurant during lunch time with an immediate gratification promotion,while a traditional promotion may not attract a customer on shortnotice.

Example systems described below in greater detail enable the generationand use of promotions that are highly relevant to consumers, addressneeds identified by merchants, and are profitable to a promotion andmarketing service. By gathering contextual data regarding consumerdevices and resource management data regarding merchant locations, apromotion and marketing service can passively and automatically identifysituations in which promotions may be effectively deployed (i.e.,situations in which a promotion is both relevant to a consumer andaddress a merchant need). In this regard, proximity density mappingprovides a new metric for identifying relevant promotions. Moreover,using knowledge regarding both consumers and merchants, the promotionand marketing service is uniquely situated to develop and deployimmediate gratification promotions, which provide easy and highlyrelevant choices to consumers. Because generation, deployment, purchase,and redemption of immediate gratification promotions can occurautomatically and with minimal active input from consumers andmerchants, it is far more likely that consumers and merchants willutilize and benefit from immediate gratification promotions than fromother promotional materials.

Definitions

Some embodiments of the present invention will now be described morefully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in whichsome, but not all embodiments of the invention are shown. Indeed, theinvention may be embodied in many different forms and should not beconstrued as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, theseembodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicablelegal requirements. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout.

As used herein, the terms “data,” “content,” “information,” and similarterms may be used interchangeably to refer to data capable of beingtransmitted, received, and/or stored in accordance with embodiments ofthe present invention. Thus, use of any such terms should not be takento limit the spirit and scope of embodiments of the present invention.Further, where a computing device is described herein to receive datafrom another computing device, it will be appreciated that the data maybe received directly from the another computing device or may bereceived indirectly via one or more intermediary computing devices, suchas, for example, one or more servers, relays, routers, network accesspoints, base stations, hosts, and/or the like, sometimes referred toherein as a “network.” Similarly, where a computing device is describedherein to send data to another computing device, it will be appreciatedthat the data may be sent directly to the another computing device ormay be sent indirectly via one or more intermediary computing devices,such as, for example, one or more servers, relays, routers, networkaccess points, base stations, hosts, and/or the like.

As used herein, the term “promotion and marketing service” may include aservice that is accessible via one or more computing devices and that isoperable to provide promotion and/or marketing services on behalf of oneor more providers that are offering one or more instruments that areredeemable for goods, services, experiences and/or the like. In someexamples, the promotion and marketing service may take the form of aredemption authority, a payment processor, a rewards provider, an entityin a financial network, a promoter, an agent and/or the like. As such,the service is, in some example embodiments, configured to present oneor more promotions via one or more impressions, accept payments forpromotions from consumers, issue instruments upon acceptance of anoffer, participate in redemption, generate rewards, provide a point ofsale device or service, issue payments to providers and/or or otherwiseparticipate in the exchange of goods, services or experiences forcurrency, value and/or the like. The service is also, in some exampleembodiments, configured to offer merchant services such as promotionbuilding (e.g., assisting merchants with selecting parameters for newlycreated promotions), promotion counseling (e.g., offering information tomerchants to assist with using promotions as marketing), promotionanalytics (e.g., offering information to merchants to provide data andanalysis regarding the costs and return-on-investment associated withoffering promotions), and the like.

As used herein, the terms “vendor,” “provider,” and “merchant” may beused interchangeably and may include, but are not limited to, a businessowner, consigner, shopkeeper, tradesperson, operator, entrepreneur,agent, dealer, organization or the like that is in the business of aproviding a good, service or experience to a consumer, facilitating theprovision of a good, service or experience to a consumer and/orotherwise operating in the stream of commerce. The “vendor,” “provider,”or “merchant” need not actually market a product or service via thepromotion and marketing service, and may utilize the promotion andmarketing service only for the purpose of gathering marketinginformation, demographic information, or the like.

As used herein, the term “consumer” should be understood to refer to arecipient of goods, services, promotions, media, or the like provided bythe promotion and marketing service and/or a merchant. Consumers mayinclude, without limitation, individuals, groups of individuals,corporations, other merchants, and the like.

As used herein, the term “promotion” may include, but is not limited to,any type of offered, presented or otherwise indicated reward, discount,coupon, credit, deal, incentive, discount, media or the like that isindicative of a promotional value or the like that upon purchase oracceptance results in the issuance of an instrument that may be usedtoward at least a portion of the purchase of particular goods, servicesand/or experiences defined by the promotion. Promotions may havedifferent values in different contexts. For example, a promotion mayhave a first value associated with the cost paid by a consumer, known asan “accepted value.” When redeemed, the promotion may be used topurchase a “promotional value” representing the retail price of thegoods. The promotion may also have a “residual value,” reflecting theremaining value of the promotion after expiration. Although consumersmay be primarily focused on the accepted and promotional value of thepromotion, a promotion may also have additional associated values. Forexample, a “cost value” may represent the cost to the merchant to offerthe promotion via the promotion and marketing service, where thepromotion and marketing service receives the cost value for eachpromotion sold to a consumer. The promotion may also include a “returnon investment” value, representing a quantified expected return oninvestment to the merchant for each promotion sold.

For example, consider a promotion offered by the promotion and marketingservice for a $50 meal promotion for $25 at a particular restaurant. Inthis example, $25 would be the accepted value charged to the consumer.The consumer would then be able to redeem the promotion at therestaurant for $50 applied toward their meal check. This $50 would bethe promotional value of the promotion. If the consumer did not use thepromotion before expiration, the consumer might be able to obtain arefund of $22.50, representing a 10% fee to recoup transaction costs forthe merchant and/or promotion and marketing service. This $22.50 wouldbe the residual value of the promotion. If the promotion and marketingservice charged the merchant $3.00 to offer the promotion, the $3.00 feewould be the “cost value.” The “return on investment” value of thepromotion might be dynamically calculated by the promotion and marketingservice based on the expected repeat business generated by the marketingof the promotion, the particular location, the demographics of theconsumer, and the like. For example, the return on investment valuemight be $10.00, reflecting the long term additional profit expected bythe merchant as a result of bringing in a new customer through use of apromotion.

Promotions may be provided to consumers and redeemed via the use of an“instrument.” Instruments may represent and embody the terms of thepromotion from which the instrument resulted. For example, instrumentsmay include, but are not limited to, any type of physical token (e.g.,magnetic strip cards or printed barcodes), virtual account balance(e.g., a promotion being associated with a particular user account on amerchant website), secret code (e.g., a character string that can beentered on a merchant website or point-of-sale), tender, electroniccertificate, medium of exchange, voucher, or the like which may be usedin a transaction for at least a portion of the purchase, acquisition,procurement, consumption or the like of goods, services and/orexperiences as defined by the terms of the promotion.

In some examples, the instrument may take the form of tender that has agiven value that is exchangeable for goods, services and/or experiencesand/or a reduction in a purchase price of a particular good, service orexperience. In some examples, the instrument may have multiple values,such as accepted value, a promotional value and/or a residual value. Forexample, using the aforementioned restaurant as the example provider, anelectronic indication in a mobile application that shows $50 of value tobe used as payment for a meal check at the restaurant. In some examples,the accepted value of the instrument is defined by the value exchangedfor the instrument. In some examples, the promotional value is definedby the promotion from which the instrument resulted and is the value ofthe instrument beyond the accepted value. In some examples, the residualvalue is the value after redemption, the value after the expiry or otherviolation of a redemption parameter, the return or exchange value of theinstrument and/or the like.

As used herein, the term “redemption” refers to the use, exchange orother presentation of an instrument for at least a portion of a good,service or experience as defined by the instrument and its relatedpromotion. In some examples, redemption includes the verification ofvalidity of the instrument. In other example embodiments, redemption mayinclude an indication that a particular instrument has been redeemed andthus no longer retains an actual, promotional and/or residual value(e.g., full redemption). In other example embodiments, redemption mayinclude the redemption of at least a portion of its actual, promotionaland/or residual value (e.g., partial redemption). An example ofredemption, using the aforementioned restaurant as the example provider,is the exchange of the $50 instrument and $50 to settle a $100 mealcheck.

As used herein, the term “immediate gratification promotion” describes acustomized promotion that can be both purchased and redeemed by aconsumer with a single message. For example, a promotion may comprise anoffer for 15% off lunch at a particular restaurant; an immediategratification promotion may comprise a customized offer for delivery toa particular consumer to purchase a specific meal off the restaurantmenu. Acceptance of the immediate gratification promotion via theconsumer's device causes the promotion and marketing service to charge apayment account associated with the consumer and also begins theredemption process (e.g., causes the merchant to prepare the meal). Insome embodiments, the immediate gratification promotion may be generatedusing contextual data regarding a set of consumer devices (definedbelow) and resource management data regarding a set of merchantlocations. In many embodiments, the immediate gratification promotion isgenerated by a promotion and marketing service, which can receive thecontextual data from one or more consumer devices and can receive theresource management data from one or more merchant devices. In thisregard, because immediate gratification promotions include a greatdegree of particularity, immediate gratification promotions can haveshort durations of validity (e.g., measured in minutes or hours ratherthan in days).

As used herein, the term “impression” refers to a metric for measuringhow frequently consumers are provided with marketing information relatedto a particular good, service, or promotion. Impressions may be measuredin various different manners, including, but not limited to, measuringthe frequency with which content is served to a consumer (e.g., thenumber of times images, websites, or the like are requested byconsumers), measuring the frequency with which electronic marketingcommunications including particular content are sent to consumers (e.g.,a number of e-mails sent to consumers or number of e-mails includingparticular promotion content), measuring the frequency with whichelectronic marketing communications are received by consumers (e.g., anumber of times a particular e-mail is read), or the like. Impressionsmay be provided through various forms of media, including but notlimited to communications, displays, or other perceived indications,such as e-mails, text messages, application alerts, mobile applications,other type of electronic interface or distribution channel and/or thelike, of one or more promotions.

As used herein, the term “electronic marketing information” refers tothe subset of types of electronic data and signals that may beinterpreted by a promotion and marketing service to provide improvedelectronic marketing communications. Electronic marketing informationmay include, without limitation, clickstream data (defined below),transaction data (defined below), location data (defined below),contextual data (defined below), communication channel data (definedbelow), discretionary data (defined below), or any other data stored byor received by the promotion and marketing service for use in providingelectronic communications to consumers.

As used herein, the term “clickstream data” refers to electronicinformation indicating content viewed, accessed, edited, or retrieved byconsumers. This information may be electronically processed and analyzedby a promotion and marketing service to improve the quality ofelectronic marketing and commerce transactions offered by, through, andin conjunction with the promotion and marketing service. It should beunderstood that the term “clickstream” is not intended to be limited tomouse clicks. For example, the clickstream data may include variousother consumer interactions, including without limitation, mouse-overevents and durations, the amount of time spent by the consumer viewingparticular content, the rate at which impressions of particular contentresult in sales associated with that content, demographic informationassociated with each particular consumer, data indicating other contentaccessed by the consumer (e.g., browser cookie data), the time or dateon which content was accessed, the frequency of impressions forparticular content, associations between particular consumers orconsumer demographics and particular impressions, and/or the like.

As used herein, the term “transaction data” refers to electronicinformation indicating that a transaction is occurring or has occurredvia either a merchant or the promotion and marketing service.Transaction data may also include information relating to thetransaction. For example, transaction data may include consumer paymentor billing information, consumer shipping information, items purchasedby the consumer, a merchant rewards account number associated with theconsumer, the type of shipping selected by the consumer for fulfillmentof the transaction, or the like.

As used herein, the term “location data” refers to electronicinformation indicating a particular location. Location data may beassociated with a consumer, a merchant, or any other entity capable ofinteraction with the promotion and marketing service. For example, insome embodiments location data is provided by a location services moduleof a consumer device. In some embodiments, location data provided by amerchant may indicate the location of consumer devices within theirretail location. In some embodiments, location data may be provided bymerchants to indicate the current location of the merchant (e.g., a foodtruck or delivery service). It should be appreciated that location datamay be provided by various systems capable of determining locationinformation, including, but not limited to, global positioning service(GPS) receivers, indoor navigation systems, cellular tower triangulationtechniques, video surveillance systems, or radio frequencyidentification (RFID) location systems.

As used herein, the term “contextual data” refers to electronicinformation providing information regarding the context of a particulardevice or individual. For instance, contextual data may be associatedwith a consumer account and may be collected from a consumer device, amerchant device, or any other entity capable of interaction with thepromotion and marketing service. Contextual data may include preferencesettings input by the consumer or on behalf of the consumer. Inaddition, in some embodiments, contextual data includes location dataprovided by a location services module of a particular device. Inaddition to location data, however, contextual data may include velocityor acceleration data, gyroscopic data, data regarding adirection-of-travel, calculated data regarding the mode of travel (e.g.,walking, jogging, biking, vehicular movement, or the like) of theparticular device. Contextual data may also comprise sensor readingsregarding ambient environmental conditions of the particular device(e.g., temperature, humidity, brightness, gravity, orientation,proximity, or the like) and may further comprise interpretations ofaudio data captured by a microphone. Moreover, contextual data mayinclude environmental indicators, such as the time of the day, day ofthe week, seasons, country identification, or the like. Contextual datamay also include historical information stored by the device orretrieved from another device (or from a promotion and marketingservice). Accordingly, contextual information may form the basis of aconsumer relevance determination. It should be appreciated thatcontextual data may be provided by various systems and sensors providedby a particular device or by devices under control of that particulardevice, contextual data may be received from other devices, orcontextual data may be received from local or external databases or froma user via a user interface. Contextual information may further includeresults generated as a result of analyzing other contextual data.

As used herein, the term “communication channel data” refers toelectronic information relating to the particular device orcommunication channel upon which a merchant or consumer communicateswith the promotion and marketing service. In this regard, communicationchannel data may include the type of device used by the consumer ormerchant (e.g., smart phone, desktop computer, laptop, netbook, tabletcomputer), the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the device, theavailable bandwidth of a connection, login credentials used to accessthe channel (e.g., a user account and/or password for accessing thepromotion and marketing service), or any other data pertaining to thecommunication channel between the promotion and marketing service and anentity external to the promotion and marketing service.

As used herein, the term “discretionary data” refers to electronicinformation provided by a merchant or consumer explicitly to thepromotion and marketing service in support of improved interaction withthe promotion and marketing service. Upon registering with the promotionand marketing service or at any time thereafter, the consumer ormerchant may be invited to provide information that aids the promotionand marketing service in providing services that are targeted to theparticular needs of the consumer or merchant. For example, a consumermay indicate interests, hobbies, their age, gender, or location whencreating a new account. A merchant may indicate the type of goods orservices provided, their retail storefront location, contactinformation, hours of operation, or the like.

It should be appreciated that the term “discretionary data” is intendedto refer to information voluntarily and explicitly provided to thepromotion and marketing service, such as by completing a form or surveyon a website or application hosted by the promotion and marketingservice. However, is should be appreciated that the examples ofdiscretionary data provided above may also be determined implicitly orthrough review or analysis of other electronic marketing informationprovided to the promotion and marketing service. It should also beappreciated that the promotion and marketing service may also gateaccess to certain features or tools based on whether certaindiscretionary data has been provided. For example, the consumer may berequired to provide information relating to their interests or locationduring a registration process.

As used herein, the term “offering parameters” refers to terms andconditions under which the promotion is offered by a promotion andmarketing service to consumers. These offering parameters may includeparameters, bounds, considerations and/or the like that outline orotherwise define the terms, timing, constraints, limitations, rules orthe like under which the promotion is sold, offered, marketed, orotherwise provided to consumers. Example offering parameters include,using the aforementioned restaurant as the example provider, limit oneinstrument per person, total of 100 instruments to be issued, a runduration of when the promotion will be marketed via the promotion andmarketing service, and parameters for identifying consumers to beoffered the promotion (e.g., factors influencing how consumer locationsare used to offer a promotion).

As used herein, the term “redemption parameters” refers to terms andconditions for redeeming or otherwise obtaining the benefit ofpromotions obtained from a promotion and marketing service. Theredemption parameters may include parameters, bounds, considerationsand/or the like that outline the term, timing, constraints, limitations,rules or the like for how and/or when an instrument may be redeemed. Forexample, the redemption parameters may include an indication that theinstrument must be redeemed prior to a specified deadline, for aspecific good, service or experience and/or the like. For example, usingthe aforementioned restaurant as the example provider, the redemptionparameters may specify a limit of one instrument per visit, that thepromotion must be used in store only, or that the promotion must be usedby a certain date.

As used herein, the term “promotion content” refers to display factorsor features that influence how the promotion is displayed to consumers.For example, promotion content may include an image associated with thepromotion, a narrative description of the promotion or the merchant, adisplay template for association with the promotion, or the like. Forexample, merchant self-service indicators (defined below) may be used toidentify promotion offers that were generated by merchants with similarcharacteristics to the merchant self-service indicators. Various otherfactors may be used to generate the promotion offer, such as the successof the promotion offers generated by the merchants with similarcharacteristics, the product availability of the merchant, and the like.

As used herein, the term “promotion component” is used to refer toelements of a particular promotion that may be selected during apromotion generation process. Promotion components may include anyaspect of a promotion, including but not necessarily limited to offeringparameters, redemption parameters, and promotion content. For example,promotion components may include, but are not limited to, promotiontitles, promotion ledes (e.g., a short text phrase displayed under apromotion title), promotion images, promotion prices, promotion discountlevels, promotion style sheets, promotion fonts, promotion e-mailsubjects, promotion quantities, promotion fine print options, promotionfees assessed to the merchant by the promotion and marketing service, orthe like. Promotion components may also include various flags andsettings associated with registration and verification functions for amerchant offering the promotion, such as whether the identity of themerchant has been verified, whether the merchant is registered with thepromotion and marketing service, or the like.

As used herein, the term “electronic marketing communication” refers toany electronically generated information content provided by thepromotion and marketing service or a merchant and to a consumer for thepurpose of marketing a promotion, good, or service to the consumer.Electronic marketing communications may include any email, short messageservice (SMS) message, web page, application interface, or the likeelectronically generated for the purpose of attempting to sell or raiseawareness of a product, service, promotion, or merchant to the consumer.

It should be appreciated that the term “electronic marketingcommunication” implies and requires some portion of the content of thecommunication to be generated via an electronic process. For example, atelephone call made from an employee of the promotion and marketingservice to a consumer for the purpose of selling a product or servicewould not qualify as an electronic marketing communication, even if theidentity of the call recipient was selected by an electronic process andthe call was dialed electronically, as the content of the telephone callis not generated in an electronic manner. However, a so-called“robo-call” with content programmatically selected, generated, orrecorded via an electronic process and initiated by an electronic systemto notify a consumer of a particular product, service, or promotionwould qualify as an electronic marketing communication. Similarly, amanually drafted e-mail sent from an employee of the promotion andmarketing service to a consumer for the purpose of marketing a productwould not qualify as an electronic marketing communication. However, aprogrammatically generated email including marketing materialsprogrammatically selected based on electronic marketing informationassociated with the recipient would qualify as an electronic marketingcommunication.

As used herein, the term “merchant-specific correspondence” refers toany electronically generated information content provided by thepromotion and marketing service to a merchant for the purpose ofmerchant acquisition. Merchant-specific correspondence may include anyemail, short message service (SMS) message, web page, applicationinterface, or the like electronically generated for the purpose ofattempting to develop a business relationship with the merchant.

As used herein, the term “business analytic data” refers to datagenerated by the promotion and marketing service based on electronicmarketing information to assist with the operation of the promotion andmarketing service and/or one or more merchants. The various streams ofelectronic marketing information provided to and by the promotion andmarketing service allow for the use of sophisticated data analysistechniques that may be employed to identify correlations, relationships,and other associations among elements of electronic marketinginformation. These associations may be processed and formatted by thepromotion and marketing service to provide reports, recommendations, andservices both internal to the promotion and marketing service and tomerchants in order to improve the process by which merchants andpromotion and marketing service engage with consumers. For example, thepromotion and marketing service may analyze the electronic marketinginformation to identify an increased demand for a particular product orservice, and provide an electronic report to a merchant suggesting themerchant offer the particular product or service. Alternatively, thepromotion and marketing service may identify that a particular productor service is not selling well or that sales of the product or serviceresult in the merchant losing money, customers, or market share (e.g.,after consumers order a particular menu item, they never come back tothe merchant), and suggest that the merchant should discontinue offeringthat product or service.

It should be appreciated that the term “business analytic data” isintended to refer to electronically and programmatically generated data.For example, a printed report or letter manually drafted by an employeeof the promotion and marketing service would not be said to includebusiness analytic data, even if said data was used by the employeeduring the drafting process, while a data disk or downloaded filecontaining analytics generated by the promotion and marketing servicewould be considered business analytic data.

It should be appreciated that the term “resource management” is intendedto refer to a marketing strategy designed to manage and maximize amerchant's revenue stream. In this regard, resource management comprisesthe analysis of underlying resource management data (e.g., productinventory and any other fixed, perishable resources at a merchantlocation). In some embodiments, resource management data may includepreconfigured acceptable discount thresholds selected by a merchant(e.g., if customer traffic is below a particular rate, a 10% discount isacceptable, although if traffic is below a second, lower, rate, then a20% discount is acceptable). For example, a restaurant may monitor itsresource management data to determine table utilization, bar capacity,or the like, and, if utilization is low, may authorize a range ofacceptable thresholds designed to reward new customers to the restaurantbased on these preconfigured promotion thresholds. As another example, aretail location that has received minimal foot traffic in a particulartimeframe may authorize steeper discounts on its products with the hopeof spurring customer interest. As yet another example, a merchant thathas excess supply of a particular item may indicate acceptability of alarger discount for that item.

As used herein, a “triggering criteria” refers to predefined set ofcircumstances that automatically prompt a consumer device to purchase apromotion. Satisfaction of triggering criteria may be identified fromanalysis of the contextual data regarding a particular consumer device.For example, if a consumer predefines consumer preferences to establishparticular triggering criteria to use to automatically purchase apromotion, the consumer device may identify a triggering event promptedby satisfaction of the particular triggering criteria. It should beunderstood that triggering criteria may be time-wise in nature (e.g.,occurrence of a particular time of day, a weekend, a holiday, or aseasonal change), or may occur based on the occurrence of an externalevent (e.g., listing or conclusion of a promotion on a competingpromotion and marketing service, identification of increased merchantneed based on resource management data received regarding the merchantlocation, or the like). Triggering criteria may be identified based oncombinations of the above events. For instance, triggering criteria maynot all be satisfied simply based on a time of day, but may requireoccurrence of additional criteria as well, such as if a consumerlocation indicates travel and the time of day suggests a typicalmeal-time (e.g., lunch) is approaching.

Technical Underpinnings and Implementation of Exemplary Embodiments

Merchants, including manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, havespent a tremendous amount of time, money, manpower, and other resourcesto determine the best way to market their products to consumers. Whethera given marketing effort is successful is often determined based on thereturn-on-investment offered to the merchant from increased awareness,sales, and the like of the merchant's goods and services in exchange forthe resources spent on the marketing effort. In other words, optimalmarketing techniques generally maximize the benefit to the merchant'sbottom line while minimizing the cost spent on marketing. To this end, amerchant's marketing budget may be spent in a variety of different ways,such as traditional advertising, promotional offerings, market research,and various other marketing techniques. The end goal of these activitiesis to ensure that products are presented to consumers in a manner thatmaximizes the likelihood that the consumers will purchase the productfrom the merchant that performed the marketing activities whileminimizing the expense of the marketing effort.

The advent of electronic commerce has revolutionized the marketingprocess. While merchants would typically have to perform costly marketresearch such as focus groups, surveys, and the like to obtain detailedinformation on consumer preferences and demographics, the digital agehas provided a wealth of new consumer information that may be used tooptimize the marketing and sales process. As a result, new technologieshave been developed to gather, aggregate, analyze, and reportinformation from a variety of electronic sources.

So-called “clickstream data” provides a robust set of informationdescribing the various interactions consumers have with electronicmarketing information provided to them by merchants and others.Promotion and marketing services have been developed with sophisticatedtechnology to receive and process this data for the benefit of bothmerchants and consumers. These services assist merchants with marketingtheir products to interested consumers, while reducing the chance that aconsumer will be presented with marketing information in which theconsumer has no interest. Some promotion and marketing services furtherleverage their access to the trove of electronic marketing informationto assist merchants and consumers with other tasks, such as offeringimproved merchant point-of-sale systems, improved inventory and supplychain management, improved methods for delivering products and services,and the like.

Unlike conventional marketing techniques related to the use of paper orother physical media (e.g., coupons clipped from a weekly newspaper),promotion and marketing services offer a wealth of additional electronicsolutions to improve the experience for consumers and merchants. Theability to closely monitor user impressions provides the ability for thepromotion and marketing service to gather data related to the time,place, and manner in which the consumer engaged with the impression(e.g., viewed, clicked, moused-over) and obtained and redeemed thepromotion. The promotion and marketing service may use this informationto determine which products and services are most relevant to theconsumer's interest, and to provide marketing materials related to saidproducts and services to the consumer, thus improving the quality of theelectronic marketing communications received by the consumer. Merchantsmay be provided with the ability to dynamically monitor and adjust theparameters of promotions offered by the promotion and marketing service,ensuring that the merchant receives a positive return on theirinvestment. For example, the merchant can closely monitor the type,discount level, and quantity sold of a particular promotion on the fly,while with traditional printed coupons the merchant would not be able tomake any changes to the promotion after the coupon has gone to print.Each of these advancements in digital market and promotion distributioninvolve problems unique to the digital environment not before seen intraditional print or television broadcast marketing.

However, these promotion and marketing services are not withoutproblems. Although the clickstream data provides a wealth ofinformation, the inventors have determined that existing techniques maynot always leverage this information in an efficient manner. Forinstance, electronic marketing services are hindered by technologicalobstacles unique to the electronic nature of the services provided, suchas constraints on the speed and accuracy of human-machine communication.In the face of increasing reliance on human-machine interaction as acentral element of many consumer activities, the clumsiness ofinteraction between users and machinery remains a bottleneck forconsumers and merchants alike. Accordingly, there remain significantproblems associated with providing relevant, high quality electronicmarketing communications to consumers and merchants in a manner that isuser friendly and avoids frustration.

In order to address these concerns, embodiments of the present inventionremove many layers of human-machine interaction and thereby improve thespeed and accuracy of promotion marketing operations, to the benefit ofboth consumers and merchants. Accordingly, embodiments of the presentinvention therefore provide improvements that address problems arisingout of the electronic nature of existing services.

Moreover, embodiments of the present invention unlock promotionalpossibilities that previously were not possible, given the speed ofinteraction between consumer and merchant devices. In this regard,passive and automated monitoring and analysis of data received byconsumer devices enables the generation of highly relevant and easy topurchase immediate gratification promotions having narrow durations ofavailability (e.g., promotions that are available for a matter ofminutes or hours) that fill unplanned immediate needs, where priormechanisms for developing promotions could not address these goals.Moreover, because of the standardization of sensor technology on mobiledevices, in conjunction with improvements in personal area network (PAN)technology, passive interaction between devices is increasinglypractical for every-day use.

Accordingly, various embodiments of the present invention providesystems that passively and automatically collect contextual dataregarding consumer devices (e.g., information regarding locations ofconsumer devices, future travel predictions, time of day, or the like)and resource management data regarding merchant locations, and utilizethis near real-time data to identify highly relevant promotions (e.g.,based on location and, in some embodiments, proximity density mappinganalysis) and/or immediate gratification promotions that streamline thepromotion purchasing and redemption experience. Such embodiments thusavoid hurdles imposed by traditional mechanisms of generatingpromotions, such as the annoyance of irrelevant marketing materials andthe requirement for significant human-machine interaction thathistorically has dissuaded many consumers and merchants from utilizing apromotion and marketing service. Moreover, because location-centricrelevance was not possible prior to ubiquity of global positioningservices, the ability to provide promotions with such relevance emergesfrom the advancement of device technology itself. Accordingly, variousembodiments of the present invention provide a new avenue for nearreal-time generation and purchasing of promotions that has nothistorically been possible.

System Architecture and Example Apparatuses

Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products of the presentinvention may be embodied by any of a variety of devices. For example,the method, apparatus, and computer program product of an exampleembodiment may be embodied by a networked device, such as a server orother network entity, configured to communicate with one or moredevices, such as one or more consumer or merchant devices. Exampleembodiments include any of a variety of mobile terminals, such as aportable digital assistant (PDA), mobile telephone, smartphone, laptopcomputer, tablet computer, or any combination of the aforementioneddevices.

In this regard, FIG. 1 discloses an example computing system 100 withinwhich embodiments of the present invention may operate. As illustrated,a promotion and marketing service 102 may be connected to a network 108(e.g., the Internet, or the like), using which the promotion andmarketing service 102 may communicate with a series of consumer devices110A through 110N. Similarly, merchants may interact with the promotionand marketing service 102 via the network 108 using a series of merchantdevices 112A through 112N. The promotion and marketing service 102 maycomprise a server 104 in communication with a database 106.

The server 104 may be embodied as a computer or computers as known inthe art. The server 104 may provide for receiving of electronicmarketing information from various sources, including but notnecessarily limited to the consumer devices 110A-110N and the merchantdevices 112A-112N. For example, the server 104 may be operable toreceive and process clickstream data or contextual data provided by theconsumer devices 114 and/or the merchant devices 112. The server 104 mayalso facilitate e-commerce transactions based on transaction informationprovided by the consumer devices 114 and/or the merchant devices 112.The server 104 may facilitate the generation and provision of variouselectronic communications and marketing materials based on the receivedelectronic marketing information.

The database 106 may be embodied as a data storage device such as aNetwork Attached Storage (NAS) device or devices, or as a separatedatabase server or servers. The database 106 includes informationaccessed and stored by the server 104 to facilitate the operations ofthe promotion and marketing service 102. For example, the database 106may include user account credentials for merchants, and consumers, dataindicating the products and promotions offered by the promotion andmarketing service, electronic marketing information (e.g., clickstreamdata, transaction data, location data, communication channel data, ordiscretionary data), analytic results, reports, financial data, and/orthe like.

The consumer devices 110A-110N may be embodied by any computing devicesknown in the art. Electronic marketing information received by theserver 104 from the consumer devices 110A-110N may be provided invarious forms and via various methods. For example, the consumer devices110A-110N may include laptop computers, smartphones, netbooks, tabletcomputers, wearable devices, or the like. The information may beprovided through various sources on these consumer devices.

In some embodiments, the mobile device may execute an “app” to interactwith the promotion and marketing service 102 and/or merchant devices112A-112N. Such apps are typically designed to execute on mobiledevices, such as tablets or smartphones. For example, an app may beprovided that executes on mobile device operating systems such as AppleInc.'s iOS®, Google Inc.'s Android®, or Microsoft Inc.'s Windows 8®.These platforms typically provide frameworks that allow apps tocommunicate with one another and with particular hardware and softwarecomponents of mobile devices. For example, the mobile operating systemsnamed above each provide frameworks for interacting with locationservices circuitry, wired and wireless network interfaces, usercontacts, and other applications in a manner that allows for improvedinteractions between apps while also preserving the privacy and securityof individual users. In some embodiments, a mobile operating system mayalso provide for improved communication interfaces for interacting withexternal devices (e.g., home automation systems, indoor navigationsystems, and the like). Communication with hardware and software modulesexecuting outside of the app is typically provided via applicationprogramming interfaces (APIs) provided by the mobile device operatingsystem.

In the case of a consumer device 110, the promotion and marketingservice 102 may leverage the application framework offered by the mobileoperating system to allow consumers to designate which information isharvested by the app and which may then be provided to the promotion andmarketing service 102. In some embodiments, consumers may “opt in” toprovide particular different types of contextual data in exchange for abenefit, such as improved relevance of marketing communications offeredto the user. As shown in FIG. 2A, during installation or use of the app,the consumer may be provided with options for configuring privacysettings and with terms and conditions governing use of the electronicmarketing information harvested by the consumer device 110 and providedto the promotion and marketing service 102. Once the consumer providesaccess to a particular feature of the consumer device 110, informationderived from that feature may in some embodiments be provided to thepromotion and marketing service 102 to improve the quality of theconsumer's interactions with the promotion and marketing service and/orwith merchants.

For example, a consumer may indicate a desire to provide locationinformation to the app from location services circuitry included in theconsumer's mobile device. Providing this information to the promotionand marketing service 102 may enable the promotion and marketing service102 to offer promotions to the consumer that are relevant to theparticular location of the consumer (e.g., by providing promotions formerchants proximate to the consumer's current location). It should beappreciated that while the app may enable configuration of privacysettings, the various mobile device operating systems may also providethe ability to regulate the types of information provided to the appassociated with the promotion and marketing service 102. For example,the consumer may decide to disable the ability of the app to access thelocation services circuitry, thus limiting the access of the consumer'slocation information to the promotion and marketing service 102.

Various other types of information may also be provided in conjunctionwith an app executing on the consumer's mobile device. For example, ifthe mobile device includes any social networking capabilities, theconsumer may enable the app to provide updates to the consumer's socialnetwork to notify friends of a particularly interesting promotion. Itshould be appreciated that the use of mobile technology and associatedapp frameworks may provide for particularly unique and beneficial usesof the promotion and marketing service through leveraging thefunctionality offered by the various mobile operating systems.

Additionally or alternatively, the consumer device 110 may interact withthe promotion and marketing service 102 or merchant device 112 via a webbrowser. As yet another example, the consumer device 110 may includevarious hardware or firmware designed to interface with the promotionand marketing service 102 or merchant device 112 (e.g., where theconsumer device 110 is a purpose-built device offered for the primarypurpose of communicating with the promotion and marketing service 102).

The merchant devices 112A-112N may be any computing devices known in theart and operated by a merchant. For example, the merchant devices112A-112N may include a merchant point-of-sale device, a merchante-commerce server, a merchant inventory system, a computing deviceaccessing a web site designed to provide merchant access (e.g., asmartphone, PDA, or desktop computer configured to access a web page viaa browser using a set of merchant account credentials), or even astandard telephone. The merchant device may execute an application tointeract with the promotion and marketing service 102 and consumerdevices 110A-110N. In this regard, the merchant devices 112A-112N mayprovide electronic marketing information to the promotion and marketingservice 102 from the merchant devices 112A-112N in various forms and viavarious methods. As one example, the merchant devices 112A-112N mayprovide near real-time resource management data, such inventoryinformation, as purchases are made from the merchant. In otherembodiments, the merchant devices 112A-112N may be employed to provideinformation to the promotion and marketing service 102 to enable thepromotion and marketing service 102 to generate promotions, immediategratification promotions, or other marketing information to be providedto consumers. Similarly, the merchant devices 112A-112N may receivedata, such as business analytic data, compensation data, or marketingoutreach communications from the promotion and marketing service 102and/or a consumer device 110A-110N.

As a foundation for some embodiments, the application may prompt themerchant to provide resource management data, which may include theprovision of preconfigured promotion thresholds that serve as guidepostsduring the automatic generation of promotions or immediate gratificationpromotions by the promotion and marketing service. In some embodiments,the preconfigured promotion thresholds may be entered by a merchantrepresentative using an interface such as that shown in FIG. 2B. Foreach product or service offered at the merchant location, the merchantrepresentative may manually indicate the largest acceptable discount,and may utilize an interface as shown in FIG. 2B to update theseselections at any time. Moreover, the merchant device 112 may harvestelectronic marketing information and provide that information to thepromotion and marketing service 102 as well. Once the merchant providesaccess to a particular feature of the merchant device 110, informationderived from that feature may in some embodiments be provided to thepromotion and marketing service 102 to improve the quality of themerchant's interactions with the promotion and marketing service and/orconsumers.

Example Implementing Apparatuses

Each of the consumer devices 110A-110N may be embodied by one or morecomputing systems, such as apparatus 300 shown in FIG. 3. As illustratedin FIG. 3, the apparatus 300 may include a processor 302, a memory 304,input/output circuitry 306, communications circuitry 308, contextcollection circuitry 310, and negotiation circuitry 312. The apparatus300 may be configured to execute the operations described above withrespect to FIG. 1 and below with respect to FIG. 7. Although thesecomponents 302-314 are described with respect to functional limitations,it should be understood that the particular implementations necessarilyinclude the use of particular hardware. It should also be understoodthat certain of these components 302-314 may include similar or commonhardware. For example, two sets of circuitry may both leverage use ofthe same processor, network interface, storage medium, or the like toperform their associated functions, such that duplicate hardware is notrequired for each set of circuitry. The use of the term “circuitry” asused herein with respect to components of the apparatus thereforeincludes particular hardware configured to perform the functionsassociated with the particular circuitry described herein.

Of course, while the term “circuitry” should be understood broadly toinclude hardware, in some embodiments, circuitry may also includesoftware for configuring the hardware. For example, in some embodiments,“circuitry” may include processing circuitry, storage media, networkinterfaces, input/output devices, and the like. In some embodiments,other elements of the apparatus 300 may provide or supplement thefunctionality of particular circuitry. For example, the processor 302may provide processing functionality, the memory 304 may provide storagefunctionality, the communications circuitry 308 may provide networkinterface functionality, and the like.

In some embodiments, the processor 302 (and/or co-processor or any otherprocessing circuitry assisting or otherwise associated with theprocessor) may be in communication with the memory 304 via a bus forpassing information among components of the apparatus. The memory 304may be non-transitory and may include, for example, one or more volatileand/or non-volatile memories. In other words, for example, the memorymay be an electronic storage device (e.g., a computer readable storagemedium). The memory 304 may be configured to store information, data,content, applications, instructions, or the like, for enabling theapparatus to carry out various functions in accordance with exampleembodiments of the present invention.

The processor 302 may be embodied in a number of different ways and may,for example, include one or more processing devices configured toperform independently. Additionally or alternatively, the processor mayinclude one or more processors configured in tandem via a bus to enableindependent execution of instructions, pipelining, and/ormultithreading. The use of the term “processing circuitry” may beunderstood to include a single core processor, a multi-core processor,multiple processors internal to the apparatus, and/or remote or “cloud”processors.

In an example embodiment, the processor 302 may be configured to executeinstructions stored in the memory 304 or otherwise accessible to theprocessor. Alternatively or additionally, the processor may beconfigured to execute hard-coded functionality. As such, whetherconfigured by hardware or software methods, or by a combination ofhardware with software, the processor may represent an entity (e.g.,physically embodied in circuitry) capable of performing operationsaccording to an embodiment of the present invention while configuredaccordingly. Alternatively, as another example, when the processor isembodied as an executor of software instructions, the instructions mayspecifically configure the processor to perform the algorithms and/oroperations described herein when the instructions are executed.

In some embodiments, the apparatus 300 may include input/outputcircuitry 306 that may, in turn, be in communication with processor 302to provide output to the user and, in some embodiments, to receive anindication of a user input. The input/output circuitry 306 may comprisea user interface and may include a display that may include a web userinterface, a mobile application, a client device, or the like. In someembodiments, the input/output circuitry 306 may also include a keyboard,a mouse, a joystick, a touch screen, touch areas, soft keys, amicrophone, a speaker, or other input/output mechanisms. The processorand/or user interface circuitry comprising the processor may beconfigured to control one or more functions of one or more userinterface elements through computer program instructions (e.g., softwareand/or firmware) stored on a memory accessible to the processor (e.g.,memory 304, and/or the like).

The communications circuitry 308 may be any means such as a device orcircuitry embodied in either hardware or a combination of hardware andsoftware that is configured to receive and/or transmit data from/to anetwork and/or any other device, circuitry, or module in communicationwith the apparatus 300. In this regard, the communications circuitry 308may include, for example, a network interface for enablingcommunications with a wired or wireless communication network. Forexample, the communications circuitry 308 may include one or morenetwork interface cards, antennae, buses, switches, routers, modems, andsupporting hardware and/or software, or any other device suitable forenabling communications via a network. Additionally or alternatively,the communication interface may include the circuitry for interactingwith the antenna(s) to cause transmission of signals via the antenna(s)or to handle receipt of signals received via the antenna(s). Thesesignals may be transmitted by the apparatus 300 using any of a number ofwireless personal area network (PAN) technologies, such as Bluetooth®v1.0 through v3.0, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), infrared wireless (e.g.,IrDA), ultra-wideband (UWB), induction wireless transmission, or thelike. In addition, it should be understood that these signals may betransmitted using Wi-Fi, Near Field Communications (NFC), WorldwideInteroperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) or other proximity-basedcommunications protocols.

Context collection circuitry 310 includes hardware components designedto gather contextual data. These hardware components may, for instance,include one or more sensors (e.g., motion sensors, environmentalsensors, position sensors), and may utilize communications circuitry 308to receive signals and contextual data from remote devices (e.g., otherconsumer devices, merchant devices, or a promotion and marketingservice). Context collection circuitry 310 may further utilize memory304 or any other memory included in the apparatus 300, to retrievepreviously stored contextual data, such as predefined consumerpreferences, which may have been received from the user via input/outputcircuitry 306. Context collection circuitry 310 may further utilizecommunications circuitry 308 to retrieve contextual data from externalsources (e.g., remote databases, remote sensors, or the like). Contextcollection circuitry 310 may further derive the contextual dataregarding the consumer device from other contextual data stored in amemory.

Context collection circuitry 310 may utilize processing circuitry, suchas the processor 302, to perform the above operations, and may utilizememory 304 to store the collected contextual data. It should also beappreciated that, in some embodiments, the context collection circuitry310 may include a separate processor, specially configured fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA), or application specific interfacecircuit (ASIC) to collect and/or generate the contextual data. Thecontext collection circuitry 310 is therefore implemented using hardwarecomponents of the apparatus configured by either hardware or softwarefor implementing these planned functions.

Negotiation circuitry 312 includes hardware configured to generate anindication to purchase a promotion in an instance in which thecontextual data regarding the apparatus 300 includes a predefinedconsumer preference instructing the apparatus to automatically purchaserelevant promotions. Negotiation circuitry 312 further includes hardwareconfigured to determine whether the terms of a promotion satisfytriggering criteria included in the predefined consumer preferences.Based on this determination, the negotiation circuitry 312 may develop arequest to purchase the promotion, which can be delivered by thecommunications circuitry to a promotion and marketing service. In oneexample embodiment, the apparatus 300 may receive a message includingterms of a promotion from a promotion and marketing service. If aconsumer associated with the apparatus 300 has populated a set ofconsumer preference selections indicating that the consumer would likethe apparatus 300 to purchase items on the consumer's behalf, thenegotiation circuitry 312 may evaluate the message received from thepromotion and marketing service. Based on the terms of the promotion andtriggering criteria that may also be received via the consumer'spopulation of the set of computer preference selections, the negotiationcircuitry 312 may determine whether to automatically purchase thepromotion, and may initiate transmission of a request to purchase thepromotion if appropriate. As alluded to directly above, negotiationcircuitry 312 may utilize communications circuitry 308 to transmit andreceive messages from a promotion and marketing service (or, whenrelevant, directly from or to a merchant) on behalf of a consumerassociated with the apparatus 300.

It should be appreciated that, in some embodiments, negotiationcircuitry 312 may include a separate processor, specially configuredfield programmable gate array (FPGA), or application specific interfacecircuit (ASIC) to perform these functions. In such embodiments,negotiation circuitry 312 is therefore implemented using hardwarecomponents of the apparatus configured by either hardware or softwarefor implementing these planned functions.

As will be appreciated, any such computer program instructions and/orother type of code may be loaded onto a computer, processor or otherprogrammable apparatus's circuitry to produce a machine, such that thecomputer, processor other programmable circuitry that execute the codeon the machine create the means for implementing various functions,including those described herein.

It should be understood that while context collection circuitry 310 isdescribed as an element of an apparatus 300, in some embodiments, one ormore external systems (such as a promotion and marketing service 102)may also be leveraged to provide at least some of the functionality ofthis circuitry.

As described above and as will be appreciated based on this disclosure,embodiments of the present invention may be configured as systems,methods, mobile devices, backend network devices, and the like.Accordingly, embodiments may comprise various means including entirelyof hardware or any combination of software and hardware. Furthermore,embodiments may take the form of a computer program product on at leastone non-transitory computer-readable storage medium havingcomputer-readable program instructions (e.g., computer software)embodied in the storage medium. Any suitable computer-readable storagemedium may be utilized including non-transitory hard disks, CD-ROMs,flash memory, optical storage devices, or magnetic storage devices.

The merchant device(s) 112 may be embodied by one or more computingsystems, such as apparatus 400 shown in FIG. 4. As illustrated in FIG.4, the apparatus 400 may include a processor 402, a memory 404, aninput/output circuitry 406, and a communications circuitry 408. As itrelates to operations described in the present invention, thefunctioning of the processor 402, the memory 404, the input/outputcircuitry 306, the communication circuitry 408, and negotiationcircuitry 414 may be similar to the similarly named components describedabove with respect to FIG. 3, and for the sake of brevity, additionaldescription of the mechanics of these components is omitted.Nevertheless, these device elements, operating together, provide theapparatus 400 with the functionality necessary to facilitate thecommunication of data (e.g., electronic marketing information, businessanalytic data, or the like) between a consumer, a promotion andmarketing service, and the merchant operating the merchant device(s)112.

Resource management circuitry 410 includes hardware configured toanalyze resource management data and identify whether a promotion (e.g.,an immediate gratification promotion) would provide a positive return oninvestment. It should be appreciated that, in some embodiments, resourcemanagement circuitry 410 may include a separate processor, speciallyconfigured field programmable gate array (FPGA), or application specificinterface circuit (ASIC) to perform these functions. Resource managementcircuitry 410 is therefore implemented using hardware components of theapparatus configured by either hardware or software for implementingthese planned functions.

The server device(s) 104 may be embodied by one or more computingsystems, such as apparatus 500 shown in FIG. 5. As illustrated in FIG.5, the apparatus 500 may include a processor 502, a memory 504, aninput/output circuitry 506, a communications circuitry 508, andpromotion design circuitry 510. As it relates to operations described inthe present invention, the functioning of the processor 502, the memory504, and the circuitry elements may be similar to the similarly namedcomponents described above with respect to FIGS. 3 and 4, and for thesake of brevity, additional description of the mechanics of thosecomponents is omitted. Nevertheless, these device elements, operatingtogether, provide the apparatus 500 with the functionality necessary tofacilitate the communication of data (e.g., electronic marketinginformation, business analytic data, or the like) between the promotionand marketing service and one or more consumer operation a consumerdevice 110 and/or merchant operating a merchant device(s) 112.

Design circuitry 510, which is not described in conjunction with eitherof FIG. 3 or 4 above, includes hardware configured to design animmediate gratification promotion. In this regard, design circuitry 510may utilize contextual data regarding a set of consumer devices andresource management data regarding a set of merchant locations to designimmediate gratification promotions. In addition, design circuitry 510may further utilize proximity density mapping to evaluate the relevanceof promotions or immediate gratification promotions to particularconsumer devices. It should be appreciated that, in some embodiments,design circuitry 510 may include a separate processor, speciallyconfigured field programmable gate array (FPGA), or application specificinterface circuit (ASIC) to perform these functions. Design circuitry510 is therefore implemented using hardware components of the apparatusconfigured by either hardware or software for implementing these plannedfunctions.

It should be understood that while design circuitry 510 is described asan element of an apparatus 500, although in some embodiments, one ormore external systems may be leveraged to provide at least some of thefunctionality of this circuitry element.

Having described specific components of an example consumer device(e.g., apparatus 300), an example merchant device (e.g., apparatus 400),and an example promotion and marketing service device (e.g., apparatus500), an example of a data flow for exchanging electronic informationamong one or more consumer devices, merchant devices, and the promotionand marketing service is described below with respect to FIG. 6.

Example Service Data Flow

FIG. 6 depicts an example data flow 600 illustrating interactionsbetween a server 602, one or more consumer devices 604, and one or moremerchant devices 606. The server 602 may be implemented in the same or asimilar fashion as the server 104 as described above in conjunction withFIG. 1, the one or more consumer devices 604 may be implemented in thesame or a similar fashion as the consumer devices 110A-110N describedabove in conjunction with FIG. 1, and the one or more merchant devices606 may be implemented in the same or a similar fashion as the merchantdevices 112A-112N described above in conjunction with FIG. 1.

The data flow 600 illustrates how electronic information may be passedamong various systems, in accordance with embodiments of the presentinvention. The one or more consumer devices 604 and/or one or moremerchant devices 606 may provide a variety of electronic marketinginformation to the server 602 for use in providing promotion andmarketing services to the consumer. It should also be appreciated thatthis electronic marketing information may be collected by the server 602from a variety of other electronic sources both internal and external toa promotion and marketing service. For example, other data sources mayinclude imported contact databases maintained by merchants, electronicsurvey questions answered by consumers, and/or various other forms ofelectronic marketing information. It should be appreciated that thiselectronic marketing information may include contextual data harvestedby the respective one or more consumer devices 604 and/or one or moremerchant devices 606. Contextual data received from the one or moreconsumer devices 604 may be used by the server 602 to identifypromotions that are immediately relevant to the consumer. Similarly,contextual data received from the one or more merchant devices 606 mayprovide insight into consumer behavior that is not be captured directlyfrom consumers.

In addition, the one or more consumer devices 604 may provide promotionpurchase messaging to the server 602, enabling the one or more consumerdevices 604 to request purchase of promotional content delivered by thepromotion and marketing service.

As a result of transactions performed between the one or more consumerdevices 604 and the server 602, the server 602 may provide fulfillmentdata to the consumer devices. The fulfillment data may includeinformation indicating whether a transaction was successful, thelocation and time a product will be provided to the consumer,instruments for redeeming promotions purchased by the consumer, or thelike.

In addition to the e-commerce interactions with the one or more consumerdevices 604 offered by the server 602, the server 602 may leverageinformation provided by the consumer devices 604 to improve therelevance of electronic marketing communications sent to consumers. Inthis manner, the server 602 may determine promotions, goods, andservices that are more likely to be of interest to a particular consumerbased on the electronic marketing information provided by and/orrelating to the particular consumer. For example, the server 602 mayevaluate contextual data (for example, by detecting the location of aconsumer based on location data provided by the consumer device, andsend electronic marketing communications (e.g., offer promotions) basedon, for instance, the proximity of the consumer to the merchantassociated with those promotions.

It should also be appreciated that the server 602 may also control otherfactors of the electronic marketing communications sent to the consumerother than the particular promotions included in the electronicmarketing communication. For example, the server 602 may determine theform, structure, frequency, and type of the electronic marketingcommunication. As with the content of the electronic marketingcommunication, these factors may be programmatically determinedaccording to various methods, factors, and processes based on electronicmarketing information received by the server 602 for the purpose ofmaximizing the likelihood that the communication will be relevant to therecipient consumer.

The server 402 interactions with the one or more merchant devices 406may be related to enabling the merchant to market their products using apromotion and marketing service. For example, the one or more merchantdevices 406 may provide promotion data defining one or more promotionsto be offered by the promotion and marketing service on behalf of themerchant. The server 402 may receive this information and generateinformation for providing such promotions via an e-commerce interface,making the promotions available for purchase by consumers. The server402 may also receive resource management data from the one or moremerchant devices 406. For example, a merchant may provide electronicmarketing information indicating particular products, product prices,inventory levels, and the like to be marketed via a promotion andmarketing service. The server 402 may receive this information andgenerate listing information to offer the indicating products toconsumers via a promotion and marketing service.

The one or more merchant devices 406 may also receive information fromthe server 402. For example, in some embodiments a merchant may obtainaccess to certain business analytic data aggregated, generated, ormaintained by the server 402. As a particular example, a merchant mightoffer to pay for consumer demographic data related to products orservices offered by the merchant. It should be appreciated however, thata merchant may not need to list any products or services via thepromotion and marketing service in order to obtain such data. Forexample, the promotion and marketing service may enable merchants toaccess electronic marketing data offered via the promotion and marketingservice based on a subscription model.

The one or more merchant devices 406 may also receive electroniccompensation data from the server 402. For example, when a promotion orproduct is sold by the promotion and marketing service on behalf of themerchant, a portion of the received funds may be transmitted to themerchant. The compensation data may include information sufficient tonotify the merchant that such funds are being or have been transmitted.In some embodiments, the compensation data may take the form of anelectronic wire transfer directly to a merchant account. In some otherembodiments, the compensation data may indicate that a promotion orproduct has been purchased, but the actual transfer of funds may occurat a later time. For example, in some embodiments, compensation dataindicating the sale of a promotion may be provided immediately, butfunds may not be transferred to the merchant until the promotion isredeemed by the consumer.

The one or more merchant devices 406 may also receive outreachcommunications from the server 402. For example, the promotion andmarketing service may communicate with a merchant who offers a productor service for which the promotion and marketing service identifies apotentially beneficial business relationship.

Embodiments described herein advantageously provide improvements toconsumer and merchant interaction with the promotion and marketingservice by improving the relevance of promotions provided to consumers(e.g., using proximity density mapping) and/or improving the ease withwhich consumers may purchase and redeem offers (e.g., via immediategratification promotions). Accordingly, embodiments described hereinavoid the bottleneck caused by undue reliance on manualconsumer/merchant action.

Example Operations Performed By a Consumer Device

Having described the circuitry comprising embodiments of the presentinvention, it should be understood that immediate gratificationpromotions may advantageously be deployed in a number of ways, describedin greater detail below. FIG. 7 broadly illustrates a flowchartcontaining a series of operations performed by a consumer device toreceive, purchase, and redeem an immediate gratification promotion, inaccordance with example embodiments described herein. The operationsillustrated in FIG. 7 may, for example, be performed by a consumerdevice 110, with the assistance of, and/or under the control of anapparatus 300.

In operation 702, apparatus 300 includes means, such as input/outputcircuitry 306, communications circuitry 308, context collectioncircuitry 310, or the like, for collecting contextual data regarding theconsumer device. In this regard, collecting the contextual data mayinclude retrieving the contextual data regarding the consumer devicefrom one or more sensors included in the apparatus, one or moredatabases included in the apparatus 300, via the input/output circuitry306 (e.g., by consumer data entry), or via the communications circuitry308 (e.g., from another device). Additionally or alternatively,collecting the contextual data may include deriving the contextual dataregarding the consumer device from other contextual data stored in oneor more memory. In this latter regard, the one or more memory may be alocal memory included in the apparatus 300 or a remote memory accessedvia communications circuitry 308. In any event, the contextual dataregarding the consumer device may include at least one of location,velocity, acceleration, angular velocity, direction-of-travel, mode oftravel, temperature, humidity, brightness, gravity, orientation,proximity, recorded audio, time of day, day of the week, seasons,country identification, behavioral history, or one or more predefinedconsumer preferences. The behavioral history may include things such asa purchase history, saved clickstream data, and/or any otherinteractions received from a consumer device that may be recorded byeither the consumer device or the promotion and marketing service.Moreover, behavioral history may access a calendar on the consumerdevice to identify historical location patterns to predict futureavailability. The predefined consumer preferences may include thingssuch as dietary restrictions or preferences, preferred times of day,preferred days of the week, price range preferences, or may indicatewhether a consumer has selected a “buy for me” preference thatauthorizes the consumer device (or in some embodiments, the promotionand marketing service itself) to automatically purchase an immediategratification promotion on behalf of the consumer.

While operation 702 illustrates the collection of contextual dataregarding the apparatus 300, it should be understood that consumer mayutilize privacy restrictions to limit the type, nature, and extent ofthe contextual data that is collected. In this regard, the apparatus 300may further include means, such as input/output circuitry 306, or thelike, to receive a set of consumer privacy restrictions. In response toreceiving these consumer privacy restrictions, the apparatus 300 mayinclude means, such as context collection circuitry 310, for collectingthe contextual data in accordance with the received consumer privacyrestrictions.

In operation 704, apparatus 300 includes means, such as communicationscircuitry 308, or the like, for transmitting the collected contextualdata regarding the consumer device to a promotion and marketing service.In this regard, the contextual may be transmitted at periodic intervals(e.g., every minute, every fifteen minutes, every hour, or the like) orin near real-time, such as by transmitting the information every time achange in the contextual data has been made. It should be understoodthat when the privacy restrictions may be implemented in operation 702to throttle the collection of some contextual data regarding theapparatus 300, all of the contextual data that is subsequently collectedmay be transmitted to the promotion and marketing service. However, inother embodiments contemplated herein, the privacy restrictions may nothalt the collection of contextual data, but may simply filter out anycollected contextual data that is unauthorized prior to delivery to thepromotion and marketing service in operation 704. In such embodiments,operation 704 may further include means, such as processing circuitry,processor 302, communications circuitry 308, or the like, for removingunauthorized contextual data from the collected contextual data prior totransmission of the remaining contextual data to the promotion andmarketing service.

In operation 706, apparatus 300 includes means, such as communicationscircuitry 308, or the like, for receiving, in response to transmittingthe collected contextual data regarding the consumer device to thepromotion and marketing service, a message indicating terms of animmediate gratification promotion offered by a merchant, wherein theimmediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion for whichpurchase automatically initiates redemption. Generation of the immediategratification promotion by the promotion and marketing service isdescribed in greater detail below in association with FIG. 9.

Operation 708 illustrates two possible avenues for responding to thereceived message indicating the terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion. If a consumer predefines a preference for the apparatus 300to purchase relevant promotions on the consumer's behalf, then theprocedure advances to operation 714. If the consumer has not predefinedthat preference, then the procedure advances to operation 710.

Turning now to operation 710 (e.g., when the “buy for me” preference isnot chosen by the consumer), the apparatus 300 includes means, such asinput/output circuitry 306, or the like, for outputting a messageidentifying the terms of the immediate gratification promotion forreview by a consumer. In this regard, outputting the message may occurvia a notification tray alert, a notification center message, an in-appmessage, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) text message, a non-MMStext message, or an email.

It should be understood that in some embodiments, the terms of theimmediate gratification promotion may include an expiration date toincrease the degree of urgency of the offering, although given the factthat immediate gratification promotions are typically highlylocation-specific and relevant to a current context of a consumerdevice, an expiration date may not be necessary for practical purposes.

In response, in optional operation 712, apparatus 300 includes means,such as input/output circuitry 306, or the like, for receiving, inresponse to outputting the message identifying the terms of theimmediate gratification promotion, a request to purchase the immediategratification promotion. In such situations, the procedure advances tooperation 716. Alternatively, however, it is possible that the consumerdoes not wish to purchase the immediate gratification promotion, or doesnot respond within a (short) expiration date that may in someembodiments be associated with the immediate gratification promotion. Insuch cases, no further action is taken.

As an alternative to operation 710, operation 714 occurs when the “buyfor me” preference has been chosen by the consumer. In operation 714,apparatus 300 includes means, such as negotiation circuitry 312, or thelike, for generating a request to purchase the immediate gratificationpromotion and for transmitting the request to purchase the immediategratification promotion to the communications circuitry 308. It shouldbe understood that negotiation circuitry does not necessary transmit apurchase indication of this nature. Rather, in operation 714, theapparatus 300 may include means for determining whether the terms of theimmediate gratification promotion satisfy triggering criteria includedin the predefined consumer preferences. In such embodiments, theapparatus 300 thus generates the indication to purchase the immediategratification promotion only in response to determining that the termsof the immediate gratification promotion satisfy the triggeringcriteria. If the triggering criteria are not satisfied, then thenegotiation circuitry 312 does not generate the purchase request.

Assuming a request to purchase the immediate gratification promotion ismade by (and regardless of whether it is made by a consumer or by thenegotiation circuitry 312), in operation 716 the apparatus 300 includesmeans, such as communications circuitry 308, or the like, fortransmitting a message to the promotion and marketing service topurchase the immediate gratification promotion. As noted elsewhere,purchasing an immediate gratification promotion also initiatesredemption of the immediate gratification promotion, so no furtheraction is necessary prior to redemption of the product or service.

Finally, in optional operation 718, the apparatus 300 my include means,such as input/output circuitry 306, communications circuitry 308, or thelike, for receiving an indication that preparation of a product orservice identified in the immediate gratification promotion is complete,and outputting a message to the consumer indicating that the product orservice is ready for redemption. As with the other messages output bythe apparatus 300, the input/output circuitry 306 may be configured tooutput this redemption readiness message via a notification tray alert,a notification center message, an in-app message, a multimedia messagingservice (MMS) text message, a non-MMS text message, or an email.Redemption will typically occur at the merchant location, although insome embodiments (e.g., ordering delivery food), redemption may occur ata location specified by the predefined consumer preferences (e.g., aconsumer's work or home address). In any event, redeeming the immediategratification promotion may comprise receiving the promotional productor service. In typical embodiments, no further payment will benecessary, as purchasing the immediate gratification promotion coversthe cost of the product or service. However, in some embodiments, theconsumer device may be utilized to pay the merchant an additional sum(e.g., a tip). In this regard, in some embodiments, this latter paymentmay be automated, in which case redemption may comprise receiving thepromotional product or service, followed by receiving an indication thatthe additional sum has been debited from an account associated with theconsumer device.

Example Operations Performed By a Merchant Device

Turning now to FIG. 8, a flowchart illustrates a series of operationsperformed by a merchant device to enable generation of an immediategratification promotion and facilitate its redemption, in accordancewith example embodiments described herein. It should be understood thatwhile the operations below are not described as being time-limited, insome embodiments, a merchant representative may identify particulartimes-of-day or time periods during which the merchant location willsupport immediate gratification promotions, while at other times themerchant location may not support them. The operations illustrated inFIG. 8 may, for example, be performed by a merchant device 112, with theassistance of, and/or under the control of an apparatus 400.

In operation 802, apparatus 400 includes means, such as processor 402,memory 404, input/output circuitry 406, communications circuitry 408,resource management circuitry 410, or the like, for collecting resourcemanagement data regarding a merchant location associated with theapparatus 400 (i.e., merchant device). The resource management dataregarding the merchant location may include at least one of: productinventory at the merchant location; identification or quantification offixed, perishable resources (e.g., in a restaurant environment, tableavailability, inventory, specials available, or the like) at themerchant location; or one or more discount thresholds regarding one ormore products or services offered for sale at the merchant location. Insome embodiments, the one or more discount thresholds may be received(or may have previously been received) from a merchant representativevia input/output circuitry 406 or from another device via communicationscircuitry 408. It should be understood that the apparatus may retrievethe resource management data regarding the consumer device from one ormore memories included in the apparatus or located externally to theapparatus. Additionally or alternatively, the apparatus may receive theresource management data from a user (e.g., via input/output circuitry406).

In operation 804, apparatus 400 includes means, such as communicationscircuitry 408, or the like, for transmitting the collected resourcemanagement data regarding the merchant location to a promotion andmarketing service. In this regard, it should be understood that theresource management data may be transmitted at periodic intervals (e.g.,every minute, every fifteen minutes, every half-hour, every hour, or thelike), or, in near real-time, such as by transmitting the informationevery time a change in the resource management data has been identified.

In operation 806, apparatus 400 includes means, such as communicationscircuitry 408, or the like, for receiving a message from the promotionand marketing service indicating terms of an immediate gratificationpromotion purchased by a consumer for redemption at the merchantlocation, wherein the immediate gratification promotion comprises apromotion for which purchase automatically initiates redemption. Itshould be understood that the immediate gratification promotion may begenerated based on collected contextual data regarding the consumerdevice and the collected resource management data regarding the merchantlocation. Generation of the immediate gratification promotion isdescribed below in connection with FIG. 9.

In operation 808, apparatus 400 includes means, such as input/outputcircuitry 406, or the like, for outputting a message identifying theterms of the immediate gratification promotion. In this regard, theapparatus may deliver the message via a notification tray alert, anotification center message, an in-app message, a multimedia messagingservice (MMS) text message, a non-MMS text message, or an email.

In operation 810, apparatus 400 includes means, such as input/outputcircuitry 406, communications circuitry 408, or the like, for receivingan indication that a product or service purchased via the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption. This indication may bereceived from a merchant representative at the merchant location (e.g.,by a restaurant employee that has just packaged a lunch meal forpickup).

In operation 812, apparatus 400 includes means, such as communicationscircuitry 408, or the like, for transmitting, in response to receivingthe indication that the product or service purchased via the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption, a message indicatingthat the purchased product or service is ready for redemption. Thismessage may be transmitted to the promotion and marketing service, whichin turn transmits a similar message to a consumer device. Alternatively,this message may be transmitted to the consumer device directly by theapparatus 400.

Example Operations Performed By the Promotion and Marketing Service

Turning now to FIG. 9, a flowchart illustrates a series of operationsperformed by a promotion and marketing system to generate, deliver, andfacilitated redemption of an immediate gratification promotion, inaccordance with example embodiments described herein. The operationsillustrated in FIG. 9 may, for example, be performed by a promotion andmarketing service 102, with the assistance of, and/or under the controlof an apparatus 500.

In operation 902, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,memory 504, input/output circuitry 506, communications circuitry 508,design circuitry 510, or the like, for receiving contextual dataregarding a set of consumer devices. In this regard, the contextual dataregarding the set of consumer devices may include at least one oflocation, velocity, acceleration, angular velocity, direction-of-travel,mode of travel, temperature, humidity, brightness, gravity, orientation,proximity, recorded audio, time of day, day of the week, seasons,country identification, behavioral history, or one or more predefinedconsumer preferences, as described previously. The contextual data maybe received periodically or in near real-time, as also describedpreviously.

In operation 904, apparatus 500 includes means, such as communicationscircuitry 508, or the like, for receiving resource management dataregarding a set of merchant locations. In this regard, the resourcemanagement data regarding the set of merchant locations may include atleast one of: product inventory at the merchant location; identificationor quantification of fixed, perishable resources at the merchantlocation; or one or more discount thresholds regarding one or moreproducts or services offered for sale at the merchant location. As withthe contextual data, the resource management data may be receivedperiodically from each merchant location or in near real-time.

In operation 906, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,design circuitry 510, or the like, for identifying a consumer device anda merchant location to match with an immediate gratification promotion.In this regard, identification of the counterparties may begin eitherfrom an analysis of each consumer device in the set of consumer devices,or from an analysis of each merchant location in the set of merchantlocations.

In some embodiments, identifying the consumer device and the merchantlocation begins by iteratively analyzing each of the merchant locations,thus identifying consumer devices that are relevant to each merchantlocation as that merchant location is analyzed. For instance, the designcircuitry 510 may identify the consumer device and the merchant locationby determining a physical region associated with each particularmerchant location of the set of merchant locations that indicates anarea within which consumers are likely to purchase immediategratification promotions redeemable at that particular merchantlocation. The design circuitry 510 may then establish a geo-fenceassociated with each merchant location of the set of merchant locations,wherein each geo-fence comprises a virtual perimeter enclosing thedetermined physical region associated with a corresponding merchantlocation. Finally, the design circuitry 510 may identify, from thereceived contextual data, a subset of consumer devices that are locatedwithin the geo-fence associated with the merchant location, and thenselect the consumer device from the subset of consumer devices that arelocated within the geo-fence. In some such embodiments, selecting theconsumer device includes extracting contextual data regarding theconsumer device from the received contextual data; and determining,based on the contextual data regarding the consumer device, that theconsumer would likely want a product or service offered by the merchantlocation.

It should be understood that determining the physical region around themerchant location within which consumers are likely to purchaseimmediate gratification promotions relating to the merchant location canbe accomplished in several ways. For instance, determining the physicalregion may include identifying, using a historical database, purchaselocations from which consumer devices have previously purchasedimmediate gratification promotions redeemable at the merchant location,and defining the physical region around the merchant location as an areaenclosing all of the identified purchase locations. Alternatively,determining the physical region may include defining the physical regionaround the merchant location based on physical regions established forsimilarly situated merchant locations. Finally, determining the physicalregion may include receiving an indication of the physical region aroundthe merchant location from a merchant device associated with themerchant location.

Other embodiments for identifying the consumer device and the merchantlocation begin by iteratively analyzing each of the consumer devices,thus identifying merchant locations for each consumer device as thatconsumer device is analyzed. For instance, the design circuitry 510 mayidentify the consumer device and the merchant location by firstdetermining a physical region associated which each particular consumerdevice of the set of consumer devices that indicates an area withinwhich that particular consumer device is likely to redeem immediategratification promotions. The design circuitry 510 may then, for theconsumer device, identify a subset of merchant locations that are withinthe determined physical region associated with the consumer device, andselect the merchant location from the subset of merchant locations thatare within the determined physical region associated with the consumerdevice.

In operation 908, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,design circuitry 510, or the like, for generating the terms of animmediate gratification promotion based on the received contextual dataand the received resource management data. In some embodiments,generating the terms of the immediate gratification promotion includesextracting contextual data regarding the consumer device from thereceived contextual data and extracting resource management dataregarding the merchant location from the received resource managementdata. In such embodiments, generating the terms of the immediategratification promotion further includes determining, based on thecontext contextual data regarding the consumer device and the resourcemanagement data regarding the merchant location, a product or service toinclude in the immediate gratification promotion, retrieving a set ofpromotions offered by the merchant location, and selecting, based on theproduct or service to include in the immediate gratification promotionand the set of promotions offered by the merchant location, a cost topurchase the immediate gratification promotion, wherein the cost topurchase the immediate gratification promotion includes a value to beretained by a merchant associated with the merchant location and a valueto be retained by a promotion and marketing service.

It should be understood that the determination of whether to generateand/or deliver an immediate gratification promotion may depend onadditional factors. In this regard, in some embodiments, the bestpossible immediate gratification promotion is identified and selectedfor delivery. However, in alternatively embodiments, if the bestpossible immediate gratification promotion is not sufficiently relevant,then no immediate gratification promotion may be delivered at all. Tothis latter point, the promotion and marketing service may assign arelevance score to each immediate gratification promotion, wherein therelevance score is based on intensity of the predicted consumer demand,calculated using the contextual data received from the identifiedconsumer device and the intensity of the merchant need, as calculatedusing the resource management data received from the identified merchantlocation. In some embodiments, the determination of whether thisrelevance score is sufficient to deliver the immediate gratificationpromotion may be based on the predefined consumer preferences (e.g., aconsumer may select the relevance threshold), although in otherembodiments, the merchant may be able to select the threshold, or in yetother embodiments, the promotion and marketing service itself may assigna minimum relevance score required before it will deliver an immediategratification promotion.

In operation 910, apparatus 500 includes means, such communicationscircuitry 508 or the like, for transmitting, to the consumer device, amessage indicating terms of an immediate gratification promotionredeemable at a merchant location of the set of merchant locations,wherein the immediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion forwhich purchase automatically initiates redemption

Optionally, in operation 912, apparatus 500 includes means, such ascommunications circuitry 508, or the like, for receiving, from theconsumer device, a message requesting purchase of the immediategratification promotion. As noted above, purchasing an immediategratification promotion also initiates redemption of the immediategratification promotion, so no further messages are needed to processthe immediate gratification promotion and initiate redemption of theproduct or service. Of course, in response to receiving this message,operation 912 may further include means, such as communicationscircuitry 508 or the like, for conveying the terms of the purchasedimmediate gratification promotion to the merchant location responsiblefor redemption.

In optional operation 914, apparatus 500 includes means, such asprocessor 502 or the like, for processing payment for the immediategratification promotion in response to receiving the message requestingpurchase of the immediate gratification promotion. In some embodiments,processing payment for the immediate gratification promotion includesdebiting an account associated with the consumer device, and causing thecommunications circuitry to transmit a message to the consumer deviceindicating that payment has been debited from an account associated withthe consumer.

Finally, in optional operation 916, apparatus 500 includes means, suchas communications circuitry 508 or the like, for receiving a messageindicating that a product or service identified in the immediategratification promotion is ready for redemption; and transmitting themessage indicating that the product or service is ready for redemptionto the consumer device.

Turning now to FIG. 10, a flowchart illustrates a series of operationsperformed by the promotion and marketing service to optimize selectionof promotions to deliver to consumers based on proximity densitymapping, in accordance with example embodiments described herein. Whileoptimization of promotion selection based on proximity density mappingis described below in connection with selection of promotions to provideto consumers, it should be understood that the optimization of promotionselection based on proximity density mapping may in some embodiments beutilized in conjunction with the generation and delivery of immediategratification promotions described above in connection with FIG. 9. Theoperations illustrated in FIG. 10 may, for example, be performed by apromotion and marketing service 102, with the assistance of, and/orunder the control of an apparatus 500.

In operation 1002, apparatus 500 includes means, such as input/outputcircuitry 506, communications circuitry 508, or the like, for receivingcontextual data regarding a consumer device. It should be understoodthat this contextual data may be classified into two sub-categories ofdata: geographical indicators and preferential indicators. In thisregard, the geographical indicators contained within the contextual dataregarding the set of consumer devices may comprise at least one oflocation, velocity, acceleration, angular velocity, direction-of-travel,mode of travel, or behavioral history. Similarly, the preferentialindicators contained within the contextual data regarding the set ofconsumer devices may include at least one of temperature, humidity,brightness, gravity, orientation, recorded audio, time of day, day ofthe week, seasons, country identification, behavioral history, or one ormore predefined consumer preferences.

In operation 1004, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,design circuitry 510, or the like, for identifying a geographical areafor redemption based on geographical indicators contained within thereceived contextual data regarding the consumer device. In someembodiments, operation 1004 includes deducing a location of the consumerdevice based on the geographical indicators contained within thereceived contextual data, determining one or more time periods duringwhich a consumer is statistically most likely to redeem a promotion, andidentifying a region, based on the geographical indicators containedwithin the received contextual data, within which the consumer device isexpected to be located in the one or more time periods. In suchembodiments, the geographical area for redemption comprises theidentified region. It should be understood that the region within whichthe consumer device is expected to be located may be based on additionalcontextual data, as well. For instance, behavioral history of theconsumer device may be used to identify this region. The behavioralhistory may include things such as a purchase history, saved clickstreamdata, and/or any other interactions received from a consumer device thatmay be recorded by either the consumer device or the promotion andmarketing service. Moreover, behavioral history may access a calendar onthe consumer device to identify historical patterns that can predictfuture location. The predefined consumer preferences may includeinformation regarding predefined relevant locations (e.g., a “home”location, a “work” location or the like) that may further be used toidentify the region within which a consumer device may be expected to belocated.

In operation 1006, apparatus 500 includes means, such as memory 504,communications circuitry 508, design circuitry 510, or the like, forretrieving a set of promotions related to the geographical area forredemption and to preferential indicators contained within thecontextual data regarding the consumer device. In this regard,promotions related to a geographical area may comprise those promotionsredeemable at merchant locations within the geographical area, or thosepromotions having some substantive relationship with the geographicalarea (e.g., Grand Canyon merchandise, if the geographical area includesor abuts the Grand Canyon).

In operation 1008, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,design circuitry 510, or the like, for determining a proximity densitymapping of each promotion within the retrieved set of promotions. Oneexample procedure for determining a proximity density mapping of apromotion is described below in conjunction with FIG. 11.

In operation 1010, apparatus 500 includes means, such as designcircuitry 510 or the like, for selecting the promotion from the set ofretrieved promotions based on a comparison of the determined proximitydensity mapping of the promotion to the proximity density mappings ofthe other promotions in the set of retrieved promotions. In this regard,it should be understood that in some embodiments, this operationcomprises selecting the promotion in response to determining that theproximity density mapping of the promotion is larger than the proximitydensity mapping of the other promotions in the set of retrievedpromotions.

In operation 1012, apparatus 500 includes means, such as communicationscircuitry 508 or the like, for transmitting, to the consumer device, amessage indicating terms of a promotion redeemable at a merchantlocation.

Optionally, in operation 1014, apparatus 500 includes means, such ascommunications circuitry 508, or the like, for receiving, from theconsumer device, a message requesting purchase of the promotion.

Finally, in optional operation 1016, apparatus 500 includes means, suchas processor 502 or the like, for processing payment for the promotionin response to receiving the message requesting purchase of thepromotion. In some embodiments, processing payment for the promotionincludes debiting an account associated with the consumer device, andcausing the communications circuitry to transmit a message to theconsumer device indicating that payment has been debited from an accountassociated with the consumer.

Turning now to FIG. 11, a flowchart illustrates a series of operationsperformed by the promotion and marketing service to determine aproximity density mapping for a promotion, in accordance with exampleembodiments described herein. The operations illustrated in FIG. 11 may,for example, be performed by a promotion and marketing service 102, withthe assistance of, and/or under the control of an apparatus 500.

In operation 1102, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,design circuitry 510, or the like, for determining a promotion categoryof the promotion. In this regard, the promotion may be categorized in anumber of different ways. For instance, the promotion may be categorizedbased on the product or service it promotes (e.g., a promotion for adeep tissue massage may be classified with a promotion for a Swedishmassage, but not with a promotion for a facial). Alternatively, thepromotion may be categorized by a merchant class offering the promotion(e.g., a promotion for a deep tissue massage may be classified with apromotion for a facial offered by the same merchant). Still further, thepromotion may be categorized by the type of benefit it offers, by thestructure of the promotion, or by any other promotion categorizationmechanism that may be known in the industry.

In operation 1104, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,design circuitry 510, or the like, for calculating a proximity densityof the determined promotion category in the geographical area. It shouldbe understood that the proximity density of the determined promotioncategory in the geographical area comprises a number of promotions inthe geographical area that are within the determined promotion category.

In operation 1106, apparatus 500 includes means, such as processor 502,design circuitry 510, or the like, for dividing the calculated proximitydensity by an average proximity density of the promotion category inregions that are similar to the geographical area. In this regard, theproximity density mapping of the promotion comprises the quotientproduced by dividing the calculated proximity density by an averageproximity density of the promotion category in similar regions to thegeographical area. It should be understood that identification ofregions that are similar to the geographical area may vary in a numberof ways. For instance, similar regions may in some situations compriseregions having similar areas. Alternatively, similar regions maycomprise regions that have similar populations. Yet further, similarregions may comprise regions that are nearby (versus those that arelocated in different states, countries, continents, or the like). Othersimilarity metrics may also be considered for this purpose. It should beunderstood that identifying similar regions to the geographical area mayutilize a (possibly weighted) combination of these bases to identify theregions that are similar to the geographical area.

FIGS. 7-11 illustrate flowcharts of the operation of an apparatus,method, and computer program product according to example embodiments ofthe invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowcharts,and combinations of blocks in the flowcharts, may be implemented byvarious means, such as hardware, firmware, processor, circuitry, and/orother devices associated with execution of software including one ormore computer program instructions. For example, one or more of theprocedures described above may be embodied by computer programinstructions. In this regard, the computer program instructions whichembody the procedures described above may be stored by a memory of anapparatus employing an embodiment of the present invention and executedby a processor of the apparatus. As will be appreciated, any suchcomputer program instructions may be loaded onto a computer or otherprogrammable apparatus (e.g., hardware) to produce a machine, such thatthe resulting computer or other programmable apparatus implements thefunctions specified in the flowchart blocks. These computer programinstructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that maydirect a computer or other programmable apparatus to function in aparticular manner, such that the instructions stored in thecomputer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture, theexecution of which implements the functions specified in the flowchartblocks. The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer or other programmable apparatus to cause a series of operationsto be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus toproduce a computer-implemented process such that the instructionsexecuted on the computer or other programmable apparatus provideoperations for implementing the functions specified in the flowchartblocks.

Accordingly, blocks of the flowcharts support combinations of means forperforming the specified functions and combinations of operations forperforming the specified functions. It will be understood that one ormore blocks of the flowcharts, and combinations of blocks in theflowcharts, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedcomputer systems which preform the specified functions, or combinationsof special purpose hardware and computer instructions.

In some embodiments, certain ones of the operations above may bemodified or further amplified. Furthermore, in some embodiments,additional optional operations may be included. Modifications,amplifications, or additions to the operations above may be performed inany order and in any combination.

Example Scenario

Consider the following example scenario, employing an embodiment of thepresent invention. Gil leaves his office after a meeting at 1:30 pm. Heis hungry and a bit frazzled, but knows he needs to get something to eatquickly before his next meeting at 2 pm. As he exits his officebuilding, his consumer device transmits contextual data to a promotionand marketing service. This contextual data includes an indication ofhis location, and may also indicate his velocity, acceleration, angularvelocity, direction-of-travel, or mode of travel. Similarly, thiscontextual data may include environmental factors, such as thetemperature, humidity, brightness, gravity, orientation, proximity,recorded audio, time of day, day of the week, seasons, countryidentification, and/or behavioral history. Finally, the contextual datamay include one or more predefined consumer preferences that Gil hadentered previously regarding when and what type of promotions hey wouldbe interested in.

In response to receiving this contextual data, the promotion andmarketing service can do one of two things. In some embodiments, thepromotion and marketing service may determine whether Gil has entered ageo-fence that had been previously established for a merchant location.In other embodiments, the promotion and marketing service may identify aset of merchant locations that are within a physical region associatedwhich Gil's consumer device that indicates an area within which Gil islikely to redeem an immediate gratification promotion. Using eithermethod, the promotion and marketing service thus uses the contextualdata from Gil's device to identify a restaurant that is relevant toGil's current situation. Then, based on the context contextual datareceived from Gil and resource management data regarding the restaurant,the promotion and marketing service generates an immediate gratificationpromotion to offer to Gil. In this regard, based on Gil's prior purchasehistory and predefined consumer preferences, the promotion and marketingservice selects a gluten free, vegetarian option.

From Gil's perspective, as he exits the office building, he gets a textmessage notification from the promotion and marketing service. The textprovides a message identifying terms of the immediate gratificationpromotion. In this case, as illustrated in FIG. 12A, the message offersGil a 15% discount on a particular tofu dish.

Gil likes the offer, and responds “YES” to the text message. Inresponse, the promotion and marketing service forwards the terms of theimmediate gratification promotion to the merchant location and processespayment for the immediate gratification promotion automatically (e.g.,by debiting a predefined account Gil has provided to the promotion andmarketing service). Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 12B, Gil receives anotification from the promotion and marketing service confirming thathis order has been placed, and that it will be ready in 10 minutes.

When Gil's order is ready, he gets a text message confirming that it isready for pick-up, as illustrated in FIG. 12C.

Gil likes this experience for a number of reasons. It is relevant: theimmediate gratification promotion provides an offer that is tailored tohis preferences (gluten free, vegetarian, etc.). It is fast: the offerformat does not saturate Gil with a ton of mediocre choices, but insteadhighlights one GREAT choice (one meal from one merchant). It is easy:Gil was able to purchase and initiate redemption of the immediategratification promotion simply replying “YES” automatically places anorder and uses the credit card that Gil has on file at Groupon. Finally,it offers customization. As illustrated in FIG. 12A, even if Gil didn'tlike the offer, he could see other options which were live at that pointfor this location.

As described above, certain example embodiments of the present inventionare directed to improved apparatuses, methods, and computer readablemedia that enable generation and utilization of highly relevantimmediate gratification promotions. By collecting contextual dataregarding consumer devices and resource management data regardingmerchant locations, a promotion and marketing service can identify andissue just-in-time and relevant recommendations that will benefit bothconsumers having a need in the market and merchants looking to increaserevenue.

Many modifications and other embodiments of the inventions set forthherein will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which theseinventions pertain having the benefit of the teachings presented in theforegoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is tobe understood that the inventions are not to be limited to the specificembodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments areintended to be included within the scope of the appended claims.Moreover, although the foregoing descriptions and the associateddrawings describe example embodiments in the context of certain examplecombinations of elements and/or functions, it should be appreciated thatdifferent combinations of elements and/or functions may be provided byalternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appendedclaims. In this regard, for example, different combinations of elementsand/or functions than those explicitly described above are alsocontemplated as may be set forth in some of the appended claims.Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a genericand descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.

1-20. (canceled)
 21. An apparatus comprising at least one memory and atleast one processor, the at least one memory having computer-codedinstructions stored thereon that, in execution with the at least oneprocessor, configure the apparatus to: receive contextual dataassociated with a consumer device; receive, via at least one merchantdevice associated with a merchant location set, resource data associatedwith the merchant location set; determine, based at least in part on oneor more of the contextual data and the resource data, an immediategratification promotion set corresponding to the merchant location set;generate a relevance score for each immediate gratification promotion inthe immediate gratification promotion set, each relevance scoregenerated based at least in part on one or more of the contextual data,the resource data, and electronic marketing information associated witha user account corresponding to the consumer device; and determine therelevance score for a selected immediate gratification promotion of theimmediate gratification promotion set satisfies a relevance threshold,the selected immediate gratification promotion associated with arespective merchant location the merchant location set, wherein theselected immediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion forwhich purchase automatically initiates redemption.
 22. The apparatusaccording to claim 21, the apparatus further configured to: determinethe relevance threshold, wherein the relevance threshold comprises aminimum relevance score satisfied by the relevance score for theselected immediate gratification promotion.
 23. The apparatus accordingto claim 21, the apparatus further configured to: assign the relevancethreshold based on received consumer input data embodying the relevancethreshold.
 24. The apparatus according to claim 21, the apparatusfurther configured to: assign the relevance threshold for the selectedimmediate gratification promotion based on received merchant input dataembodying the relevance threshold, the merchant input data received froma merchant device associated with the selected immediate gratificationpromotion.
 25. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein to determinethe immediate gratification promotion set corresponding to the merchantlocation set the apparatus is configured to: determine, for at least afirst merchant location in the merchant locations set and based at leastin part on the contextual data and the resource management data, aproduct or a service associated with the first merchant location forincluding in at least a first immediate gratification promotion of theimmediate gratification promotion set; retrieve a set of promotionsassociated with the first merchant location; select, based on theproduct or the service and the set of promotions associated with thefirst merchant location, an immediate promotion cost value; and includethe first immediate gratification promotion in the immediategratification promotion set, the first immediate gratification promotioncomprising the immediate promotion cost value.
 26. The apparatusaccording to claim 21, wherein to generate the relevance score for eachimmediate gratification promotion in the immediate gratificationpromotions set, the apparatus is configured to: for each immediategratification promotion in the immediate gratification promotions set,generate a predicted demand value associated with the immediategratification promotion, wherein the relevance score for the immediategratification promotion is generated based on the predicted demandvalue.
 27. The apparatus according to claim 21, the apparatus furtherconfigured to: for each particular merchant location in the merchantlocation set, cause a merchant device of the at least one merchantdevice to provide at least a portion of the resource data, wherein themerchant device is associated with the particular merchant location, andwherein the portion of the resource data is associated with theparticular merchant location, wherein the portion of the resource dataassociated with the particular merchant location defines at least onedetermined promotion threshold for the particular merchant location, andwherein to determine the immediate gratification promotion set, theapparatus is configured to at least: generate first terms for a firstimmediate gratification promotion associated with the particularmerchant location, wherein the first terms are generated to satisfy theat least one determined promotion threshold embodied in the portion ofthe resource data associated with the particular location.
 28. Theapparatus according to claim 21, the apparatus further configured to:determine, based at least in part on the contextual data, the consumerdevice is located within a merchant-associated physical regionassociated with the respective merchant location.
 29. The apparatusaccording to claim 21, the apparatus further configured to: determine atarget geographical location based on the contextual data; and identifyeach immediate gratification promotion in the immediate gratificationpromotion set is associated with a redemption location proximate to thetarget geographical location or is associated with data indicating arelationship with the target geographical location.
 30. Acomputer-implemented method comprising: receiving contextual dataassociated with a consumer device; receiving, via at least one merchantdevice associated with a merchant location set, resource data associatedwith the merchant location set; determining, based at least in part onone or more of the contextual data and the resource data, an immediategratification promotion set corresponding to the merchant location set;generating a relevance score for each immediate gratification promotionin the immediate gratification promotion set, each relevance scoregenerated based at least in part on one or more of the contextual data,the resource data, and electronic marketing information associated witha user account corresponding to the consumer device; and determining therelevance score for a selected immediate gratification promotion of theimmediate gratification promotion set satisfies a relevance threshold,the selected immediate gratification promotion associated with arespective merchant location the merchant location set, wherein theselected immediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion forwhich purchase automatically initiates redemption.
 31. Thecomputer-implemented method according to claim 30, thecomputer-implemented method further comprising: determining therelevance threshold, wherein the relevance threshold comprises a minimumrelevance score satisfied by the relevance score for the selectedimmediate gratification promotion.
 32. The computer-implemented methodaccording to claim 30, the computer-implemented method furthercomprising: assign the relevance threshold based on received consumerinput data embodying the relevance threshold.
 33. Thecomputer-implemented method according to claim 30, thecomputer-implemented method further comprising: assign the relevancethreshold for the selected immediate gratification promotion based onreceived merchant input data embodying the relevance threshold, themerchant input data received from a merchant device associated with theselected immediate gratification promotion.
 34. The computer-implementedmethod according to claim 30, wherein determining the immediategratification promotion set corresponding to the merchant location setcomprises: determining, for at least a first merchant location in themerchant locations set and based at least in part on the contextual dataand the resource management data, a product or a service associated withthe first merchant location for including in at least a first immediategratification promotion of the immediate gratification promotion set;retrieving a set of promotions associated with the first merchantlocation; selecting, based on the product or the service and the set ofpromotions associated with the first merchant location, an immediatepromotion cost value; and including the first immediate gratificationpromotion in the immediate gratification promotion set, the firstimmediate gratification promotion comprising the immediate promotioncost value.
 35. The computer-implemented method according to claim 30,wherein generating the relevance score for each immediate gratificationpromotion in the immediate gratification promotions set comprises: foreach immediate gratification promotion in the immediate gratificationpromotions set, generating a predicted demand value associated with theimmediate gratification promotion, wherein the relevance score for theimmediate gratification promotion is generated based on the predicteddemand value.
 36. The computer-implemented method according to claim 30,the computer-implemented method further comprising: for each particularmerchant location of the merchant location set, causing a merchantdevice associated with the particular merchant location to provide atleast a portion of the resource data, the portion of the resource dataassociated with the particular merchant location, wherein the portion ofthe resource data associated with the particular merchant locationdefines at least one determined promotion threshold for the particularmerchant location, and wherein determining the immediate gratificationpromotion set comprises: generating first terms for a first immediategratification promotion associated with the particular merchantlocation, wherein the first terms are generated to satisfy the at leastone determined promotion threshold embodied in the portion of theresource data associated with the particular location.
 37. Thecomputer-implemented method according to claim 30, thecomputer-implemented method further comprising: determining, based onthe contextual data, the consumer device is located within amerchant-associated physical region associated with the respectivemerchant location
 38. The computer-implemented method according to claim30, the computer-implemented method further comprising: determining atarget geographical location based on the contextual data; andidentifying each immediate gratification promotion in the immediategratification promotion set is associated with a redemption locationproximate to the target geographical location or is associated with dataindicating a relationship with the target geographical location.
 39. Acomputer program product comprising at least one non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium having computer program code thereonthat is configured, in execution with at least one processor, for:receiving contextual data associated with a consumer device; receiving,via at least one merchant device associated with a merchant locationset, resource data associated with the merchant location set;determining, based at least in part on one or more of the contextualdata and the resource data, an immediate gratification promotion setcorresponding to the merchant location set; generating a relevance scorefor each immediate gratification promotion in the immediategratification promotion set, each relevance score generated based atleast in part on one or more of the contextual data, the resource data,and electronic marketing information associated with a user accountcorresponding to the consumer device; and determining the relevancescore for a selected immediate gratification promotion of the immediategratification promotion set satisfies a relevance threshold, theselected immediate gratification promotion associated with a respectivemerchant location the merchant location set, wherein the selectedimmediate gratification promotion comprises a promotion for whichpurchase automatically initiates redemption.
 40. The computer programproduct according to claim 39, the computer program product furtherconfigured for: for each particular merchant location of the merchantlocation set, causing a merchant device associated with the particularmerchant location to provide at least a portion of the resource data,the portion of the resource data associated with the particular merchantlocation, wherein the portion of the resource data associated with theparticular merchant location defines at least one determined promotionthreshold for the particular merchant location, and wherein determiningthe immediate gratification promotion set comprises: generating firstterms for a first immediate gratification promotion associated with theparticular merchant location, wherein the first terms are generated tosatisfy the at least one determined promotion threshold embodied in theportion of the resource data associated with the particular location.